Susan M. Gasser

Susan Gasser received her doctorate from the University of Basel in Biochemistry for the development of an in vitro system for the import of mitochondrial proteins with Gottfried (Jeff) Schatz in the Biozentrum of the University of Basel. She then studied the long-range folding of the genome in flies and human cells as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Geneva with Ulrich K. Laemmli .[1][2] She established a role for topoisomerase II in metaphase chromosome structure (Gasser et al., JMB 1986) and identified a role for A/T-rich sequences in long-range chromatin folding.

Gasser presently holds a professorship at the University of Basel and runs a research laboratory at the FMI. From 1986 to 2001, Gasser led a research group at the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research. There she discovered and documented the clustering of yeast telomeres at the nuclear envelope, and elucidated the role of this subnuclear distribution in heritable gene repression using a combined genetic and fluorescence microscopy approach. From 2001 to 2004, Gasser was a professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Geneva. The laboratory developed quantitative live imaging tools to study the subnuclear dynamics of DNA loci in living cells. From 2004 - 2019, she was the Director of the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel, and Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Basel. She has been a pioneer in characterizing the role histone modifications in the spatial organization of chromatin in the interphase nucleus. Gasser has served on review boards and advisory councils throughout Switzerland and Europe.[1][2][3] She is currently a member of the Swiss Science Council and the Board of the ETH Domain (Rat der Eidgenossosichen Technischen Hochschulen) and Chaired the Commission on Gender Equality of the Swiss National Science Foundation from 2014-2020. She was previously Chair of the EMBO Council (2002 - 2005) and member of the President's Science and Technology Advisory Council (PSTAC) for the European Commission.

• 1977-1979: University of Chicago, Illinois, United States, Bachelor of Arts with honours in biophysics[3]
• 1979-1982: University of Basel (Biozentrum) PhD Magna cum laude in biochemistry, thesis advisor: Prof. G. Schatz[3]
• 1983-1986: maître assistant, Prof. U. K. Laemmli, University of Geneva, Department of Molecular Biology[3]
• 1986-1990: junior group leader, Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research[3]
• 1991-2001: senior group leader, Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research[3]
• 2001-2004: full professor, Department of Molecular Biology, University of Geneva, Geneva[3]
• 2004-2019: director of the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, Basel[3]
• Since January 2005: full professor in molecular biology, University of Basel[3]

• 2016 Honorary Doctorate, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic[4]
• 2016 Lee Hartwell Award of the Genetics Society of America
• 2014 Doctorat Honoris causa, University of Lausanne
• 2013 Member of the EC Presidents Science and Technology advisory Council (PSTAC)[5]
• 2013 Weizmann Institute, Women in Science Award[5]
• 2012 FEBS/EMBO Women in Science Award[5][6]
• 2011 Prix International de l'INSERM, France[5]
• 2009 Election to American Association for the Advancement of Science[5]
• 2009 London Royal Society of Chemistry "Nucleic Acid" Award[5]
• 2007 Election to German Academy of Science, Leopoldina[5]
• 2006 Election to Academy of Medical Sciences, Switzerland[5]
• 2006 Gregor Mendel Medal, Czech Academy of Science[5]
• 2006 Otto Naegeli Prize for Biomedical Research, Switzerland[5]
• 2005 Foreign member, Académie des Sciences, Institut de France[5]
• 1999 Medal of Honor, 3rd Medical Faculty of Charles University, Prague[5]
• 1998 Election to Academia Europaea[5]
• 1994 Friedrich Miescher Prize, Swiss Society for Biochemistry[5]
• 1993 Member, EMBO[1]
• 1991 National Latsis Prize, Swiss National Science Foundation[5]

• 2020 The LSM2-8 complex and XRN-2 mediate RNA decay at H3K27me3-marked genes in C. elegans. Nature Cell Biology, doi: 10.1038/s41556-020-0504-1 Mattout A, Gaidatzis D, Padeken J, Schmid CD, Aeschlimann F, Kalck V and Gasser SM [7]
• 2019 Active chromatin marks drive spatial sequestration of heterochromatin in differentiated cells. Nature 569, 734 - 739. doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1243-y Cabianca D, Munoz Jimenez C, Kalck V, Gaidatzis D, Padeken J, Askjaer P and Gasser SM [7]
• 2017 Histone degradation in response to DNA damage enhances chromatin dynamics and recombination rates. Nature Struct. Mol. Biology, 24, 99 – 107. doi: 10.1038/nsmb.3347v Hauer MH, Seeber A, Singh V, Thierry R, Sack R, Amitai A, Kryzhanovska M, Eglinger J, Holcman D, Owen-Hughes T and Gasser SM [7]
• 2016 Histone H3K9 methylation is dispensable for C. elegans development, but suppresses RNA-DNA hybrid-associated repeat instability. Nature Genetics, 48, 1385 - 1395. doi: 10.1038/ng.3672 Zeller P, Padeken J, van Schendel R, Kalck V, Tijsterman M and Gasser SM [7]
• 2015 Perinuclear Anchoring of H3K9-Methylated Chromatin Stabilizes Induced Cell Fate in C. elegans embryos. Cell, 163, 1333 – 1347 Gonzalez-Sandoval A, Towbin BD, Kalck V, Cabianca DS, Gaidatzis D, Hauer MH, Geng L, Wang L, Yang T, Wang X, Zhao K and Gasser SM [7]
• 2013 TORC2 signaling pathway guarantees genome stability in face of DNA strand breaks. Mol Cell, 51:829-839, Shimada K, Fillipuzzi I, Stahl M, Helliwell SB, Seeber A, Loewith R, Movva R, Gasser SM[7]
• 2013 The shelterin protein POT-1 anchors C. elegans telomeres through SUN-1 at the nuclear periphery. J Cell Biol, 203:727-35, Ferreira HC, Towbin BD, Jegou T, Gasser SM[7]
• 2013 Checkpoint kinases and nucleosome remodelers enhance global chromatin mobility in response to DNA damage. Genes Dev, 27:1999-2008. doi:10.1101/gad.222992.113, Seeber A, Dion V, Gasser SM [7]
• 2013 Cohesin and the nucleolus constrain the mobility of spontaneous repair foci. EMBO Rep. 14:984-991, Dion V, Kalck V, Seeber A, Schleker T, Gasser SM[7]
• 2013 SIR proteins and the assembly of silent chromatin in budding yeast. Annu Rev Genet. 47:275-306, Kueng S, Oppikofer M, Gasser SM [7]
• 2012 Step-wise methylation of histone H3K9 positions chromosome arms at the nuclear periphery in C. elegans embryos. Cell, 150:934-947, Towbin BD, Gonzalez-Aguilera C, Sack R, Gaidatzis D, Kalck V, Meister P, Askjaer P, Gasser SM [7]
• 2012 Increased dynamics of double strand breaks requires Mec1, Rad9 and the homologous recombination machinery. Nat. Cell Biol. 14:502-509, Dion V, Kalck V, Horigome C, Towbin BD, Gasser SM[7]
• 2012 Targeted INO80 enhances subnuclear chromatin movement and ectopic homologous recombination. Genes Dev 26:369-38 Neumann FR, Dion V, Gehlen L, Tsai-Pflugfelder M, Schmid R, Taddei A, Gasser SM[7]
• 2008 Functional Targeting of DNA Damage to a Nuclear Pore-associated SUMO-dependent Ubiquitin ligase. Science, 322, 597 - 602 Nagai S, Dubrana K, Tsai-Pflugfelder M, Davidson MB, Roberts TM, Brown GW, Varela E, Hediger F, Gasser SM* and Krogan NJ [7]
• 2005 Automatic tracking of individual fluorescence particles - Application to the study of chromosome dynamics. IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, 14, 1372 – 1383 Sage D, Neumann FR, Hediger F, Gasser SM and Unser M [7]
• 2004 INO80 recruitment by H2A phosphorylation links ATP-dependent chromatin remodeling with DNA double-strand break repair. Cell, 119, 777 – 788 van Attikum H, Fritsch O, Hohn B and Gasser SM [7]

• Research Europe
• Gasser's Lab