Dr. Joachim Lingner

Biography

Joachim Lingner obtained his PhD in 1992 from the Biozentrum at the University of Basel, where he worked under Walter Keller studying the 3’ end formation of messenger RNAs. His postdoctoral work from 1993 to 1997 at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute of the University of Colorado at Boulder led to the discovery of the catalytic subunit of telomerase (TERT), which plays a critical role in counteracting telomere shortening, cellular senescence, and the behavior of cancer cells and stem cells in the germ line. In 1997, Lingner became a group leader at the ISREC and in 2005 he became a professor at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland. His lab focuses on studying telomeres, which are crucial for maintaining chromosome stability and regulating cellular lifespan. His team has elucidated the mechanisms by which the telomerase enzyme regulates chromosome ends and counteracts telomere shortening. Furthermore, they discovered that telomeres are transcribed into long noncoding RNA, TERRA, which is essential for telomeric chromatin structure and maintenance. Lingner’s lab has also developed techniques to purify telomeric chromatin and analyze its protein composition using mass spectrometry to uncover changes in the telomeric proteome associated with aging, disease, and cancer. He has received several awards, including the START-fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation in 1997, the Friedrich Miescher prize in 2002, and the ERC advanced investigator award in 2008. He was elected to the EMBO in 2005 and to Academia Europaea in 2020.

Research Interests

Experience

Awards