Stefan Kubicek's Biography

Stefan Kubicek, Head, CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine

Stefan Kubicek, born 1978, is Austrian and joined CeMM on August 1st 2010. He obtained a M.Sc. in synthetic organic chemistry from Vienna University of Technology following a diploma thesis at ETH Zuerich. For his Ph.D. in Thomas Jenuwein’s lab at the IMP in Vienna he moved fields to Molecular Biology. He then performed postdoctoral research working on Chemical Biology with Stuart Schreiber at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT in Cambridge, MA, USA.

Stefan Kubicek heads the chemical screening platform, a task he is well equipped for based on previous screening experiences with Boehringer Ingelheim (Ridgefield, CT, USA) and at the Broad Institute. These activities have resulted in the identification of the first selective histone methyltransferase inhibitor, BIX-02194, and a small molecule inducer of insulin expression in pancreatic alpha cells, BRD7389. At CeMM, the screening platform features state of the art equipment fully automated with two robotic arms, including automatic liquid handling (pipetting and acoustic transfer systems) and confocal automated microscope, platereader (luminescence, absorbance, fluorescence, FP, FRET) and gene-expression based (qPCR, Luminex technology) readouts. For screening, compound sets targeting kinases, chromatin modifying enzymes, known bioactives as well as a large chemical diversity library are available.

The Kubicek lab is working on the role of chromatin in the definition of cell types and cell states. Projects focus on defining the contribution of histone methylation to cancer development and progression and targeting these processes with small molecules. Furthermore, we are interested in targeting epigenetic marks for cellular transdifferentiation, with the goal of generating insulin-producing beta cells from other cell types.