23/06/2017

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Professor Marc Timmers elected to the EMBO

On 16 June, Professor Marc Timmers, the new Professor of Medical Epigenetics within the German Cancer Consortium (DKTK), was elected to join the European Molecular Biology Association (EMBO). The EMBO is one of Europe’s most highly respected professional organizations for scientists and has over 1700 members. Prospective members are nominated based on outstanding scientific achievements and are elected by the existing members.

Prof Marc Timmers, Stefanie Koidl (Research Assistant) and Anja Hernandez (Administrative Coordination) in the laboratory at Universitätsklinikum Freiburg. Source: Marc Timmers

“I am delighted with this honor and find it fitting that it coincides with the start of my work at the DKTK’s partner location in Freiburg. I am convinced that fundamental molecular research is the key to new innovations in medical research, and the DKTK makes it possible to develop them into applications.”

Marc Timmers took up his DKTK professorship at University Hospital Freiburg on 1 June 2017. He was previously Professor of Epigenetics and Gene Regulation at the University of Utrecht. In Freiburg, his research will continue to focus on the epigenetic regulation of cancer. In this context, Timmers is investigating how chemical changes in DNA and in histones, the proteins that package our DNA into chromosomes, regulate certain cancer genes. “In particular, I want to investigate histone methylation in cancer. We still don’t know much about changes to methylation patterns on the DNA of tumor cells. In addition, we want to investigate to what extent other epigenetic regulation mechanisms change in cancer, and whether this applies to all types of cancer.” In his studies, Marc Timmers combines quantitative mass spectrometry, genome editing and deep sequencing of nucleic acids with complex tumor cell models.