Wolf Reik | |
|---|---|
 Wolf Reik | |
| Nationality | German |
| Awards | EMBO Member[when?] FMedSci FRS |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | epigenetics |
| Institutions | Babraham Institute University of Cambridge, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute |
| Website | www |
Wolf ReikFRS[1] is a German-Britishmolecular biologist and an honorary group leader at theBabraham Institute, honorary professor ofEpigenetics at theUniversity of Cambridge and associate faculty at theWellcome Trust Sanger Institute.[2][3][4] He was announced as the director of Altos Labs Cambridge Institute when the company launched on 19 January 2022.[5]
Reik is the first child of four of Rosemarie Reik (nee Heiles) and Helmut Gottlieb Reik (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmut_Reik) who were both physicists. Reik was born in Aachen on 22nd August 1957, attended primary school in Braunschweig, and secondary school in Freiburg. Reik studied Physics and Medicine at the University of Freiburg and completed his medical degree at the University of Hamburg. He obtained his MD in the lab ofRudolf Jaenisch and did postdoctoral work in the lab ofAzim Surani.
Wolf Reik studies how additional information can be added to thegenome through a range of processes collectively calledepigenetics. He discovered some of the key epigenetic mechanisms important for mammalian development, physiology, genome reprogramming, and human diseases. His early work led to the discovery that the molecular mechanism ofgenomic imprinting is based onDNA methylation.[6] He uncoverednon-coding RNA[7] andchromatin looping[8] regulating imprinted genes, which he showed to be involved in fetal nutrition, growth, and disease.[9] He found that the environment influences epigenetic programming in embryos, with changes in gene expression persisting in adults and their offspring.With his collaborators he discovered global epigenetic reprogramming in early embryos and in primordial germ cells10. He found that adult human cells could be substantially rejuvenated by epigenetic reprogramming induced by transient treatment with Yamanaka reprogramming factors11.[10][11]
Wolf Reik has received many awards, including:
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