Sarah Teichmann

Last updated

Sarah Teichmann
Sarah Teichmann-ISMB2016 (28960321841) (cropped).jpg
Teichmann speaking in 2016
Born
Sarah Amalia Teichmann

(1975-04-15) 15 April 1975 (age 49) [1]
Karlsruhe, West Germany
(now Germany)
Nationality
  • German
  • American [1]
  • British
Education European School, Karlsruhe
Alma mater University of Cambridge (BA, MA, PhD)
Children2 [2] [3] [4]
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions
Thesis Genome evolution: analysing proteomes with new methods  (1999)
Doctoral advisor Cyrus Chothia [12] [13]
Doctoral students M. Madan Babu [14]
Website teichlab.org

Sarah Amalia Teichmann (born 15 April 1975) [1] is a German scientist, the former head of cellular genetics at the Wellcome Sanger Institute [15] and a visiting research group leader at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI). [16] [12] She serves as director of research (equivalent to Professor) [17] in the Cavendish Laboratory, [18] Professor at the University of Cambridge and Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, and is a senior research fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge. [19] [20]

Contents

Education

Teichmann was educated at the European School, Karlsruhe in Germany from 1981 to 1993 where she completed the European Baccalaureate in 1993. [21] Teichmann went on to study the Natural Sciences Tripos at Trinity College, Cambridge and was awarded a first class Bachelor of Arts degree in 1996. In 1999, she completed her PhD supervised by Cyrus Chothia [22] at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) on genome evolution. [23]

Career and research

Following her PhD, Teichmann did postdoctoral research supervised by Janet Thornton at University College London [16] and funded by the Beit Memorial Fellowships for Medical Research. From 2001-2012, she was a Medical Research Council (MRC) Programme Leader, studying patterns in protein interactions and transcriptional regulatory networks. [24] [25]

In 2013 Teichmann was appointed a joint position at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI). From 2005 to 2015 she served as a teaching fellow and director of studies at Trinity College, Cambridge. Since 2016 Teichmann has served as the head of Cellular Genetics at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute [15] and a visiting research group leader at the EBI. [12]

Teichmann's research [26] [27] [28] [29] investigates gene expression [30] [31] [32] and protein complex assembly [33] using both wet laboratory and computational biology techniques. [34] In particular her research group:

...seeks to elucidate the principles of protein structure evolution, higher order protein structure and protein folding, and the principles underlying protein complex formation and organization. We have a longstanding interest in understanding gene expression regulation, and in our wetlab at the Sanger Institute use mouse T helper cells as a model of cell differentiation. [35]

Teichmann's research has been funded by the European Research Council (ERC), the Medical Research Council (MRC), the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), [36] the Wellcome Trust, the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), the Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development and the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST). [21]

As of 2015 Teichmann has supervised several PhD students to completion [37] [21] including Madan Babu, [14] Varodom Charoensawan [38] Subhajyoti De [39] Jay Han, [40] Sarah Kay Kummerfeld [41] [42] Tina Perica, [43] and Jing Su, [44] and several postdoctoral researchers who have gone on to become Principal investigators (PIs). [21] [45] [46] [47]

Awards and honours

Teichmann has won a number of awards. In 2010, she was awarded the Colworth Medal from the Biochemical Society. [48] [49] In 2012, Teichman was awarded the Francis Crick Medal and Lecture, membership of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) [7] and the Lister Prize from the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine. [6] She won the Suffrage Science award in 2012. [48] In 2015 she was awarded the Michael and Kate Bárány Award for young investigators by the Biophysical Society [50] and the EMBO Gold Medal. Teichmann was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) in 2015. Her citation on election reads:

Sarah Teichmann is Research Group Leader at EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute and has made major contributions to biology over the past 15 years. A fundamental discovery was her work to define key biophysical mechanisms in protein complex assembly, showing that protein complexes assemble via distinct, ordered pathways. She showed that these assembly pathways are conserved in evolution and how they may be predicted from 3D structure. Her databases and computational analysis methods have had a broad and deep impact on the community. She represents a new breed of scientists at the interface between computational and experimental molecular biology. [51]

Teichmann has also been an activist for women's careers in science through enabling scientists in families to advance their careers while working part-time. [52] She chaired a Sex in Science debate at the Wellcome Trust on balancing family life with working in research.[ citation needed ] Teichmann was elected an ISCB Fellow in 2016 by the International Society for Computational Biology. [10]

In 2020, Teichmann was recognised on The Times 'Science Power List' for her work on the Human Cell Atlas [53] and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. [54]

In 2023 Teichmann was the winner of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS) EMBO Women in Science Award. [55]

Personal life

Teichmann has two daughters. [2] [4] Teichmann is the co-author of the children's language education novel Teenage Detectives, [56] which she wrote as a teenager together with her mother Dr. Virginia Teichmann, an English-language university lecturer in Karlsruhe. [57] In 2022, Teichmann collaborated in the production of an experimental film Constellations, which was produced by her sister, artist Esther Teichmann, and visual artist Christopher Stewart as an exploration of the Human Cell Atlas. The film was funded by the Wellcome Trust as part of the One Cell at a Time public engagement grant. [58] [59]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Teichmann, Sarah (2007). "Sarah Amalia Teichmann PhD MA BA (Hons cantab) CV" (PDF). mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk. Laboratory of Molecular Biology. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 February 2013.
  2. 1 2 Greenstreet, Rosanna (2018). "Sarah Teichmann: 'I wake as early as 4am and think about work'". The Guardian . London.
  3. Marx, Vivien (2014). "The Author File: Janet Thornton". Nature Methods . 11 (2): 115. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2831 . PMID   24645189. S2CID   1970327.
  4. 1 2 Pain, Elisabeth (2015). "Harnessing computer power to understand biology". Science. doi:10.1126/science.caredit.a1500172.
  5. Perica, Tina; Marsh, Joseph A.; Sousa, Filipa L.; Natan, Eviatar; Colwell, Lucy J.; Ahnert, Sebastian E.; Teichmann, Sarah A. (2012). "The emergence of protein complexes: quaternary structure, dynamics and allostery". Biochemical Society Transactions. 40 (3): 475–491. doi:10.1042/BST20120056. PMID   22616857. S2CID   21452774.
  6. 1 2 "Dr Sarah Teichmann, EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute & Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute". lister-institute.org.uk. Archived from the original on 15 October 2014.
  7. 1 2 "Sarah A. Teichmann EBI, Cambridge (Hinxton), United Kingdom EMBO 2012". European Molecular Biology Organization. Archived from the original on 19 January 2016.
  8. "Finding patterns in genes and proteins: decoding the logic of molecular interactions". Royal Society. 2012. Archived from the original on 10 November 2012.
  9. Finding patterns in genes and proteins: decoding the logic of molecular interactions on YouTube, Royal Society
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  11. Sarah Teichmann publications indexed by Google Scholar OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
  12. 1 2 3 "People & Groups: Sarah Teichmann, Group Leader - Teichmann research group". EMBL-EBI. 2013. Archived from the original on 3 April 2013.
  13. Park, J; Teichmann, S. A.; Hubbard, T; Chothia, C (1997). "Intermediate sequences increase the detection of homology between sequences". Journal of Molecular Biology. 273 (1): 349–54. doi:10.1006/jmbi.1997.1288. PMID   9367767. S2CID   28606158.
  14. 1 2 Mohan, Madan Babu (2004). Evolution of transcriptional regulatory networks. jisc.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. OCLC   890159758. EThOS   uk.bl.ethos.616113.
  15. 1 2 "Dr Sarah Teichmann, FMedSci, Head of Cellular Genetics". Cambridge: sanger.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 15 April 2016.
  16. 1 2 Marx, Vivien (2016). "The Author File: Sarah Teichmann". Nature Methods. 13 (4): 279. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.3808 . ISSN   1548-7091. PMID   27203785. S2CID   205424792.
  17. Anon (2013). "Job titles and duties at the University of Cambridge". University of Cambridge. Archived from the original on 3 July 2013.
  18. Anon (2015). "Dr Sarah Teichmann FMedSci". tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk. Cambridge. Archived from the original on 12 September 2015.
  19. "People – Churchill College". www.chu.cam.ac.uk.
  20. Dhillon, Paraminder; Teichmann, Sarah A. (2019). "In conversation with Sarah Teichmann". The FEBS Journal . 286 (8): 1445–1450. doi: 10.1111/febs.14806 . ISSN   1742-464X. PMID   31012289.
  21. 1 2 3 4 Anon (2015). "Sarah Teichmann: 40th FEBS Congress - The Biochemical Basis of Life - Berlin, Germany". Federation of European Biochemical Societies. Archived from the original on 20 February 2015.
  22. Chothia, C; Gough, J; Vogel, C; Teichmann, S. A. (2003). "Evolution of the protein repertoire". Science. 300 (5626): 1701–3. Bibcode:2003Sci...300.1701C. doi:10.1126/science.1085371. PMID   12805536. S2CID   27681885.
  23. Teichmann, Sarah Amalia (1999). Genome evolution : analysing proteomes with new methods (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. OCLC   894602472. EThOS   uk.bl.ethos.624585.
  24. Babu, M. M.; Luscombe, N. M.; Aravind, L; Gerstein, M; Teichmann, S. A. (2004). "Structure and evolution of transcriptional regulatory networks". Current Opinion in Structural Biology . 14 (3): 283–91. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.471.9692 . doi:10.1016/j.sbi.2004.05.004. PMID   15193307.
  25. Luscombe, N. M.; Babu, M. M.; Yu, H; Snyder, M; Teichmann, S. A.; Gerstein, M (2004). "Genomic analysis of regulatory network dynamics reveals large topological changes". Nature . 431 (7006): 308–12. Bibcode:2004Natur.431..308L. doi:10.1038/nature02782. PMID   15372033. S2CID   4391278.
  26. Sarah A. Teichmann author profile page at the ACM Digital Library OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
  27. Sarah Teichmann at DBLP Bibliography Server OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
  28. Sarah Teichmann publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  29. Sarah Teichmann publications from Europe PubMed Central OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
  30. Carninci, P; Kasukawa, T; Katayama, S; Gough, J; Frith, M. C.; Maeda, N; Oyama, R; Ravasi, T; Lenhard, B; Wells, C; Kodzius, R; Shimokawa, K; Bajic, V. B.; Brenner, S. E.; Batalov, S; Forrest, A. R.; Zavolan, M; Davis, M. J.; Wilming, L. G.; Aidinis, V; Allen, J. E.; Ambesi-Impiombato, A; Apweiler, R; Aturaliya, R. N.; Bailey, T. L.; Bansal, M; Baxter, L; Beisel, K. W.; Bersano, T; et al. (2005). "The transcriptional landscape of the mammalian genome". Science. 309 (5740): 1559–63. Bibcode:2005Sci...309.1559F. doi:10.1126/science.1112014. PMID   16141072. S2CID   8712839.
  31. Drosophila 12 Genomes Consortium; Clark, A. G.; Eisen, M. B.; Smith, D. R.; Bergman, C. M.; Oliver, B; Markow, T. A.; Kaufman, T. C.; Kellis, M; Gelbart, W; Iyer, V. N.; Pollard, D. A.; Sackton, T. B.; Larracuente, A. M.; Singh, N. D.; Abad, J. P.; Abt, D. N.; Adryan, B; Aguade, M; Akashi, H; Anderson, W. W.; Aquadro, C. F.; Ardell, D. H.; Arguello, R; Artieri, C. G.; Barbash, D. A.; Barker, D; Barsanti, P; Batterham, P; et al. (2007). "Evolution of genes and genomes on the Drosophila phylogeny". Nature. 450 (7167): 203–18. Bibcode:2007Natur.450..203C. doi: 10.1038/nature06341 . PMID   17994087.
  32. Wilson, D; Charoensawan, V; Kummerfeld, S. K.; Teichmann, S. A. (2008). "DBD--taxonomically broad transcription factor predictions: New content and functionality". Nucleic Acids Research. 36 (Database issue): D88–92. doi:10.1093/nar/gkm964. PMC   2238844 . PMID   18073188.
  33. Levy, E. D.; Teichmann, S (2013). "Structural, Evolutionary, and Assembly Principles of Protein Oligomerization". Oligomerization in Health and Disease. Progress in Molecular Biology and Translational Science. Vol. 117. pp. 25–51. doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-386931-9.00002-7. ISBN   9780123869319. PMID   23663964.
  34. Perica, T; Kondo, Y; Tiwari, S. P.; McLaughlin, S. H.; Kemplen, K. R.; Zhang, X; Steward, A; Reuter, N; Clarke, J; Teichmann, S. A. (2014). "Evolution of oligomeric state through allosteric pathways that mimic ligand binding". Science. 346 (6216): 1254346. doi:10.1126/science.1254346. PMC   4337988 . PMID   25525255.
  35. "Teichmann group Research EMBL-EBI". European Bioinformatics Institute. 2013. Archived from the original on 2 April 2013.
  36. Anon (2015). "UK Government research grants awarded to Sarah Teichmann". Research Councils UK. Archived from the original on 3 March 2015.
  37. Teichmann, Sarah (2015). "Alumni from Sarah Teichmann's Group". European Bioinformatics Institute. Archived from the original on 27 May 2024.
  38. Charoensawan, Varodom (2011). Evolution and dynamics of transcription factors and gene expression patterns. ethos.bl.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. OCLC   890150091.
  39. De, Subhajyoti (2008). Human genome evolution : investigating protein divergence, polymorphisms and genomic neighbourhood. ethos.bl.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. OCLC   890154864.
  40. Han, Jay (2007). Structure, function and evolution of protein-protein interactions (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge.
  41. Kummerfeld, Sarah Kay (2006). Towards understanding the protein universe : genome-scale studies of evolution and gene regulation. ethos.bl.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge.
  42. Levy, Emmanuel Doram (2008). Classification, evolution, and assembly of protein complexes. ethos.bl.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge.
  43. Perica, Tina (2013). Evolutionary and structural dynamics of protein complexes (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. OCLC   890148231.
  44. Su, Jing (2012). Computational prediction of regulatory elements (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge.
  45. Adryan, B; Teichmann, S. A. (2010). "The developmental expression dynamics of Drosophila melanogaster transcription factors". Genome Biology . 11 (4): R40. doi: 10.1186/gb-2010-11-4-r40 . PMC   2884543 . PMID   20384991.
  46. Gsponer, J; Futschik, M. E.; Teichmann, S. A.; Babu, M. M. (2008). "Tight regulation of unstructured proteins: From transcript synthesis to protein degradation". Science . 322 (5906): 1365–8. Bibcode:2008Sci...322.1365G. doi:10.1126/science.1163581. PMC   2803065 . PMID   19039133.
  47. Hebenstreit, D; Gu, M; Haider, S; Turner, D. J.; Liò, P; Teichmann, S. A. (2011). "EpiChIP: Gene-by-gene quantification of epigenetic modification levels". Nucleic Acids Research . 39 (5): e27. doi:10.1093/nar/gkq1226. PMC   3061070 . PMID   21131282.
  48. 1 2 Anon (2012). "Honour and heirloom for Sarah Teichmann". Laboratory of Molecular Biology. Archived from the original on 3 March 2015.
  49. Anon (2015). "Women at Cambridge: Sarah Amalia Teichmann". University of Cambridge. Archived from the original on 20 February 2015.
  50. "Biophysical Society Names 2015 Award Recipients" (PDF). Biophysical Society. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 October 2014. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  51. Anon (2015). "Dr Sarah Teichmann FMedSci". acmedsci.ac.uk. London: Academy of Medical Sciences. Archived from the original on 6 July 2015.
  52. Gaskell & Kostic (2015). "The Unstoppable Sarah Teichmann on Programing, Motherhood, and Protein Complex Assembly:The Female Scientist". Cell. Archived from the original on 2 April 2016. Retrieved 25 November 2015.
  53. Franklin-Wallis, Oliver (23 May 2020). "From pandemics to cancer: the science power list". The Times. ISSN   0140-0460 . Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  54. "Sarah Teichmann". Royal Society. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
  55. "FEBS | EMBO Women in Science Award - FEBS". 26 August 2022. Retrieved 4 January 2024.
  56. Teichmann, Sarah; Teichmann, Virginia (1991). Cornelsen English Library - Fiction: 8. Schuljahr, Stufe 1 - Teenage Detectives: Textheft. Mit Aufgaben und Activities. Germany: Cornelsen Verlag. ISBN   978-3464053362.
  57. Anon. "The Honeycomb: Dr. Virginia Teichmann: Word Lover" (PDF). expat-karlsruhe.com. Retrieved 7 December 2015.
  58. "Constellations – One Cell at a Time". www.onecellatatime.org. Retrieved 28 March 2025.
  59. "Tank Magazine". Tank Magazine. Retrieved 28 March 2025.