Dirk Linke

Academic Interests

My research group focusses on the structure and function of the bacterial cell surface. Currently, we work on three main topics:

1. Bacterial Adhesion: How do bacteria stick to surfaces, or in the case of pathogens, to host cells?
2. Membrane transport: how are adhesion molecules transported to the cell surface? And can this process be inhibited with novel antimicrobial substances?
3. Vaccines and Biomarkers: can we exploit bacterial surface proteins as vaccine candidates or as biomarkers, e.g. for improved clinical diagnostics?

Our work is typically comparative – we do not work on a single pathogenic “pet” organism, but instead compare related surface proteins from different species, studying their similarities and subtle differences. Our work is also interdisciplinary – we use methods from bioinformatics, structural biology and biophysics on top of classical methods from microbiology, molecular biology and biochemistry.
 

Teaching

• MBV 3060 (Basic Microbiology)
• MBV 4910 (iGEM Competition)
• ...

Higher education and employment history

• since 2015 Full Professor, Department of Biosciences, UiO
• since 2013 Associate Professor, Department of Biosciences, UiO
• 2010 Habilitation, Department of Biology, University of Tübingen
• 2007-2013 Project Leader, Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Tübingen
• 2003-2007 PostDoc, Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Tübingen
• 2002 PhD, Department of Chemistry, TU Berlin
• 1991-1997, undergraduate studies in Biochemistry, FU Berlin
   

Honoraria

• 2009 Young Academics Award from the German Society for Hygiene and Microbiology
• 2008 and 2009 two 1-year stipends from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• ...

Appointments

• Advisory Board Member, Molecular Microbiology (Wiley)
• Review Editor, Journal of Biological Chemistry
• Review Editor, Frontiers in Microbiology