Prof. Dr. Stefan Dübel

Prof. Dr. Stefan Dübel
Director

Room: P101c
Phone: +49.531.391.5731
Fax: +49.531.391.5763
e-mail: biotech(at)tu-braunschweig.de

Stefan Dübel is Full Professor of Biotechnology and Director of the corresponding department at the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany. He initiated the "Antibody factory" of the German National Gemome Research Network and is editor of the four volume "Handbook of Therapeutic Antibodies" and other antibody engineering books. He is co-founder of several biotech companies, including the animal-free antibody company Abcalis and Yumab, which specializes in the discovery and development of human therapeutic antibodies. Two human antibodies developed in his laboratory using phage display have found clinical application (against SARS-CoV-2 and metastatic cancer).

After completing his PhD at the University of Heidelberg, he joined the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in 1989, where he pioneered in vitro human antibody selection, leading to several important inventions, including antibody phage display (e.g. US Patent 6387627 1991), human antibody gene libraries (e.g. US Patent 6319690 1990) and synthetic antibody gene libraries with randomised CDRs (e.g. EP0440146B1 1990). His lab continued to contribute to numerous innovations in human antibody development, phage display and in vitro evolution, e.g. hyperphage technology (2001) , ORFeome display (2006) or targeted RNases for cancer therapy (1995/2008). Other achievements include the development of the first in vivo protein knockdown using intrabodies (2014), a universal allosteric switch module for antibody affinity (2017) and multiclonal antibodies (2019). He developed and adapted Phage Display for research antibody generation in international consortia (Affinity Proteome, Affinomics, SGC) and continues to advocate for animal-free antibody generation using Phage Display. His work has led to >300 publications and numerous patent applications.

Research topics

Antibody Engineering, Phage Display, Animal-Free Antibody Generation, Anti-Cancer-Antibodies, Intrabodies, in vitro Evolution, Synthetic Biology, Biosensors, Hyperphage, SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies
 

Curriculum vitae

1978-1982 Studies of Biology at the Universities of Mainz and Heidelberg, Germany 

1982-1983 Diploma thesis in Botany at the Max-Planck Institute for Cell Biology in Ladenburg, Germany on Developmental Biology of the Green Algae Acetabularia

1984-1985 Zivildienst: Use and research on diagnostic tools for autoimmune diseases at the Institute of Immunology, University of Heidelberg.

1986-1989 PhD thesis at the Centre for Molecular Biologiy Heidelberg (ZMBH) on "Cell Cycle Regulation and Cell Differentiation in the Coelenterate Hydra", Promotion (Dr. rer. nat.) summa cum laude.

8/1989-7/1991 Scholar at the German Cancer Research Centre, Heidelberg (DKFZ) with his own project on "Generation and Screening of E. coli Libraries of Recombinant Antibodies" 

1/1992-7/1992 Work on "Recombinant Antibodies Against TNF Receptor" at the Institute of Cell Biology and Immunology, University of Stuttgart, Germany

8/1992-9/1996 Work on "Recombinant Antibodies, Immunotoxins and Phage Display Screening Technologies" at the German Cancer Research Centre, Heidelberg (DKFZ)

1996-2001 Group leader of the "Recombinant Antibody Unit" at the Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Heidelberg

6/1997 Habilitation (Faculty of Biology), University of Heidelberg

2/2001 Appointed "Hochschuldozent" at the University of Heidelberg

2001-2002 CSO and Member of the Directory Board of LifeBits AG

since10/2002  Full Professor and Director of the Department of Biotechnology, Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany

Scholarships

1989-1991 "Scholarship for the promotion of outstanding young scientists" of German Cancer Research Centre, (DKFZ,  Heidelberg