Senior Staff Scientist

Summary: Oliver Renner is a biologist working in medical research and drug development. He is especially interested in the communication of cells during physiological and pathophysiological processes. Currently, Oliver is working on the development of specific kinase inhibitors for cancer treatment. Oliver Renner obtained his diploma in biology 1992 at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich. In his diploma´s thesis, he set up a luciferase-based assay system for the screening of tumor-promoting agents. By the same university, he was awarded his PhD in Biology in 1996 for his work on Identification and Characterization of DNA-binding proteins implicated in the lytic life cycle of the human Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). This study has been conducted at the Haematologikum of the Helmholtz Centre in Munich. 1996, Oliver joined the group of Prof. Michael Marber of the King´s College/St. Thomas´ Hospital in London to work on ischemia of heart cells. In 1997 he moved to the Max-Planck-Institute of Heart and Lung Research (former MPI for Physiological and Clinical Research) in Bad Nauheim, Germany, to work in the groups of Prof. Werner Risau and Prof. Wolfgang Schaper on angiogenesis during development, diabetes and stroke. During this time, he set up successful collaborations with the Universities of Gothenburg (Sweden), Freiburg (Germany) and Giessen (Germany). Oliver joined the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) in Madrid in 2001 to help establishing the Experimental Therapeutics Programme. The aim of this programme is the development of specific kinase inhibitors for cancer therapy. In this process, Oliver is responsible – amongst other duties - for the development of cell culture and mouse models, the development of tumor markers, and for the functional characterization of lead compounds. Two of the projects Oliver was involved in could recently be licensed to companies.