Walter Keller#

Obituary, University of Basel (in German)

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Curriculum Vitae#

Degrees:

Dr. med. Medical Academy, Düsseldorf, 1962
Ph.D. (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology), State University of New York, Stony Brook, 1974

Positions held:

• 2008 - present: Professor emeritus, Department of Cell Biology, Biozentrum, University of Basel
• 1987 - 2008: Professor, Department of Cell Biology, Biozentrum, University of Basel
• 1980 - 1987: Head, Division of Molecular Biology II, Institute of Cell and Tumor Biology, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg
• 1976 - 1980: Associate Professor, Department of Microbiology, University of Heidelberg
• 1970 - 1976: Senior Staff Investigator, Tumor Virus Group, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York
• 1969 - 1970: Visiting Fellow, Laboratory of Biology of Viruses, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland
• 1968 Postdoctoral fellow, Department of Biophysics, Johns Hopkins University Medical School, Baltimore, Maryland
• 1966 - 1968: Research Assistant, Department of Human Genetics, University of Freiburg (Breisgau)
• 1964 - 1966: Research Assistant, Department of Pathology, University of Freiburg (Breisgau)

Professional activities:

• 1986 - 1988 Editorial Board, 'The EMBO Journal'
• 1986 - 1990 Associate Editor, 'Cell'
• 1995 - present Editorial Board, 'RNA'
• 1995 - 1997 Chairman of the Biozentrum

Honors:

• 1978 Elected Member, European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO)
• 1989 Elected Member, Academia Europaea
• 1998 Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine
• 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award for Science from the RNA Society

Scientific projects:

• 1966 - 1968: Human biochemical genetics. Enzymology of branched chain ketoaciduria ("maple syrup urine disease").
• 1968 - 1970: Molecular biology of tumor viruses. Purification of mammalian RNA polymerase II.
  
• 1970 - 1976: Molecular biology of the tumor viruses SV40 and adenovirus 2 (transcription mapping). Purification and characterization of mammalian RNA polymerase II, RNase H, and topoisomerase I. Demonstration of the role of RNA primers in DNA synthesis in vitro. Development of an electrophoretic method for the quantitative determination of the topology of closed-circular DNA.
  
• 1976 -1980: Analysis of SV40 chromatin structure. Cloning of full-length cDNA of foot and mouth disease virus RNA (FMDV).1980 - 1987: Development of an efficient in vitro system for pre-mRNA splicing. Analysis of the role of U-snRNPs and specific intron sequences in splicing and in spliceosome assembly. Purification of non-snRNP splicing factors. Analysis of pre-mRNA 3' end processing complexes.
• 1987 - present: Purification and characterization of mammalian pre-mRNA splicing factors.
  • Characterization of factors involved in mammalian and in yeast premRNA 3' end processing. Cloning and expression of recombinant mammalian and yeast poly(A) polymerases and of other 3' end processing factors. Genetic and biochemical analysis of pre-mRNA 3' end processing in yeast.
  • Studies on the coupling between pre-mRNA transcription, RNA processing and transcription termination.
  • Development of an in vitro system for the specific editing of premRNAs coding for glutamate receptors in mammalian brain. Purification, cloning and recombinant expression of double-stranded RNA-specific adenosine deaminases involved in pre-mRNA editing.
  • Characterization of bacterial and eukaryotic tRNA-specific adenosine deaminases.
  • Biochemical and molecular characterization of the unconventional poly(A) polymerases Trf4p and Trf5p of S. cerevisiae and their mammalian homologues and their involvement in RNA quality control by the nuclear exosome.
  • Structural analysis of the yeast cleavage and polyadenylation factor CPF (in collaboration with Profs. Andreas Engel (Biozentrum Basel) and Holger Stark (Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry Göttingen).