Sarah Teichmann
Birth nameSarah Amalia Teichmann
Birth date15 April 1975 (age 51)[1]
Birth placeKarlsruhe, West Germany
(now Germany)
Fields
Workplaces
EducationEuropean School, Karlsruhe
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge (BA, MA, PhD)
Thesis urlhttp://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.624585
Thesis year1999
Doctoral advisorCyrus Chothia[3][4]
Doctoral studentsM. Madan Babu[5]
Awards
Websiteteichlab.org

Sarah Amalia Teichmann (born 15 April 1975)[1] is a German scientist, the former head of cellular genetics at the Wellcome Sanger Institute[12] and a visiting research group leader at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI).[13][3] She serves as director of research (equivalent to Professor)[14] in the Cavendish Laboratory,[15] Professor at the University of Cambridge and Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, and is a senior research fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge.[16][17]

Education

Teichmann was educated at the European School, Karlsruhe in Germany from 1981 to 1993 where she completed the European Baccalaureate in 1993.[18] 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[19] at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) on genome evolution.[20]

Career and research

Following her PhD, Teichmann did postdoctoral research supervised by Janet Thornton at University College London[13] 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.[21][22]

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[12] and a visiting research group leader at the EBI.[3]

Teichmann's research[23][24][25][26] investigates gene expression[27][28][29] and protein complex assembly[30] using both wet laboratory and computational biology techniques.[31] 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.[32]

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),[33] 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).[18]

As of 2015 Teichmann has supervised several PhD students to completion[34][18] including Madan Babu,[5] Varodom Charoensawan[35] Subhajyoti De[36] Jay Han,[37] Sarah Kay Kummerfeld[38][39] Tina Perica,[40] and Jing Su,[41] and several postdoctoral researchers who have gone on to become Principal investigators (PIs).[18][42][43][44]

Awards and honours

Teichmann has won a number of awards. In 2010, she was awarded the Colworth Medal from the Biochemical Society.[45][46] In 2012, Teichman was awarded the Francis Crick Medal and Lecture, membership of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO)[8] and the Lister Prize from the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine.[7] She won the Suffrage Science award in 2012.[45] In 2015 she was awarded the Michael and Kate Bárány Award for young investigators by the Biophysical Society[47] and the EMBO Gold Medal. Teichmann was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) in 2015. Her citation on election reads: 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.[48] 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.[11] She was awarded the Mary Lyon Medal by The Genetics Society in 2018.[49]

In 2020, Teichmann was recognised on The Times 'Science Power List' for her work on the Human Cell Atlas[50] and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.[51]

In 2023 Teichmann was the winner of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS) EMBO Women in Science Award.[52]

Personal life

Teichmann has two daughters.[53][54] Teichmann is the co-author of the children's language education novel Teenage Detectives,[55] which she wrote as a teenager together with her mother Dr. Virginia Teichmann, an English-language university lecturer in Karlsruhe.[56] 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.[57][58]

References

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  2. ^
  3. ^ "People & Groups: Sarah Teichmann, Group Leader - Teichmann research group". EMBL-EBI. 2013. Archived 2013-04-03 at the Wayback Machine.
  4. ^ 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
  5. ^ Mohan, Madan Babu (2004). "Evolution of transcriptional regulatory networks" (PhD). jisc.ac.uk. University of Cambridge. OCLC 890159758
  6. ^ 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
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  22. ^ 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
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  30. ^ Levy, E. D. & Teichmann, S (2013). "Structural, Evolutionary, and Assembly Principles of Protein Oligomerization". Oligomerization in Health and Disease. Vol. 117. Progress in Molecular Biology and Translational Science. pp. 25–51. doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-386931-9.00002-7. ISBN 978-0-12-386931-9. PMID 23663964
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  55. ^ Teichmann, Sarah & Teichmann, Virginia (1991). Cornelsen English Library - Fiction: 8. Schuljahr, Stufe 1 - Teenage Detectives: Textheft. Mit Aufgaben und Activities. Germany: Cornelsen Verlag. ISBN 978-3-464-05336-2.
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