March 2022 - The iCMLf awards the 2022 Rowley Prize to Professor Oliver Hantschel, for his scientific research on structural biochemistry of tyrosine kinase oncoproteins that helped to describe novel targetable pathways in the pathophysiology of BCR-ABL. The Rowley Prize is awarded to celebrate people who have made outstanding lifetime contributions to the understanding of the biology of CML.

Since January 2020, Professor Hantschel is Director of the Institute for Physiological Chemistry, Chair of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Philipps University of Marburg in Germany. As a translational cancer researcher with expertise in biochemistry, drug action, structural biology and protein engineering, Dr Hantschel’s work focuses on the elucidation of molecular mechanisms of oncogenesis in order to find new concepts and approaches for the development of new therapeutic approaches.

With a strong focus on tyrosine kinase oncoproteins, The Hantschel lab uses interdisciplinary approaches at the intersection of protein biochemistry, structural biology, protein engineering, molecular oncology, proteomics and chemical biology to study cell signalling in leukaemias with the aim of finding new avenues for therapeutic interventions.

His current research focus includes:

• Development and validation of synthetic binding proteins (monobodies) targeting protein-protein interactions in oncogenes.
• Further development of monobodies into a new class of intracellular protein-based cancer therapeutics against previously untargeted oncoproteins.
• Identification and pharmacological attack on allosteric regulatory mechanisms important for tyrosine kinase signalling.
• Analysis of oncogenic signalling networks using functional proteomics.

Before taking over his current position, he served as Assistant Professor at the EPFL School of Life Sciences and Endowed Chair for Translational Oncology at the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) in Lausanne. Oliver Hantschel studied biochemistry at the University of Regensburg and at the Rockefeller University in New York City. He received his PhD from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) Heidelberg and Ruhr University Bochum (summa cum laude) and did postdoctoral work at the Research Centre for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.

Learn more about Oliver Hantschel’s scientific work here