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Dr Daniel Christ

 

Senior Research Fellow; Group Leader Immunology Program and Director Antibody Development, Garvan Institute of Medical Research; Conjoint Senior Lecturer Faculty of Medicine, The University of New South Wales

Email: d.christ "at"garvan.org.au
Research Group: Antibody Engineering

 
 
Throughout his career Daniel has worked at the interface between the biological sciences and biotechnology. His work has led to important contributions in the field of monoclonal antibody technology and in-vitro evolution.
 
 
 

After undergraduate studies in Switzerland, Daniel joined Sir Gregory Winter's laboratory at Cambridge University for his PhD. Winter had shown that in-vitro evolution technology (such as phage display) can be used for the generation of therapeutic antibodies, initiating a multi-billion dollar biotechnology industry. At Cambridge, Christ and Winter further developed monoclonal antibody technology, particularly in the field of domain antibodies. He was elected a Fellow of Trinity College (Cambridge University) at age 29. He maintains close links with industry and was involved the foundation of Domantis Ltd, for which he worked as a consultant until its sale to GSK in 2006. Daniel joined Garvan in 2007 to head the newly established antibody engineering lab.

 

Education

2003 PhD, Cambridge University
1999 Dipl. Natw. (M.Sc.), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH)

Awards and Honours

2009 NHMRC CDA Fellow
2002 Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge University
1999 ERS PhD Scholarship, Trinity College, Cambridge University
1999 Studer Prize (best graduate), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH)

Selected Publications

Dudgeon K, Rouet R, Kokmeijer I, Schofield P, Stolp J, Langley D, Stock D and Christ D. (2012) General strategy for the generation of human antibody variable domains with increased aggregation resistance. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 109: 10879-10884. [ Editorial: http://www.pnas.org/content/109/27/10741.full.pdf]

Rouet R, Dudgeon K, Schofield P, Lowe D, Jermutus L and Christ D. (2012) Expression of high affinity antibody fragments in bacteria. Nature Protoc. 7: 364-373.

Lowe D, Dudgeon K, Rouet R, Schofield P, Jermutus L and Christ D. Aggregation, stability, and formulation of human antibody therapeutics. Adv Protein Chem Struct Biol 2011;84:1-206

O'Toole SA, Machalek DA, Shearer RF, Millar EK, Nair R, Schofield P, McLeod D, Cooper CL, McNeil CM, McFarland A, Nguyen A, Ormandy CJ, Qiu MR, Rabinovich B, Martelotto LG, Vu D, Hannigan GE, Musgrove EA, Christ D, Sutherland RL, Watkins DN, Swarbrick A. Hedgehog overexpression is associated with stromal interactions and predicts for poor outcome in breast cancer. Cancer Res 2011 71(11):4002-4014

Lee CM, McGuire H, King C & Christ D. Expression, purification and characterization of recombinant interleukin-21 J. Immunol. Methods 2010; 362 (1-2):185-189.

Famm K, Hansen L, Christ D & Winter G. Thermodynamically stable aggregation-resistant antibody domains through directed evolution. J Mol Biol 2008; 376:926-931.

Lee CM, Iorno N, Sierro F & Christ D. Selection of human antibody fragments by phage display. Nat Protoc 2007; 2(11):3001-3008

Christ D, Famm K, Winter G. Repertoires of aggregation-resistant human antibody domains. Protein Eng Des Sel 2007; 20(8):413-416.

Christ D, Famm K, Winter G. Tapping diversity lost in transformation - in vitro amplification of ligation reactions. Nucl Acids Res 2007; 34(16):e108.

Christ D, Winter G. Identification of protein domains by shotgun proteolysis. J Mol Biol 2006; 358(2):364-371.

Christ D, Winter G. Identification of functional similarities between proteins by directed evolution. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2003; 100(23):13202-13206.

Search for all publications by D Christ

 
 
 

Areas of Interest

biologics, antibody therapeutics, phage display, protein engineering
 

News

 

Garvan performs well in NHMRC grants round

24 Oct 2012
Garvan received $19.6 million in the latest round of National Health and Medical Research Council grants, announced last Friday by the federal Minister for Health, Tanya Plibersek, at the University of Sydney. The Institute performed at least 50% above the national average, receiving 12.5% of funding awarded to NSW as a whole, and 3% of the national total. The minister announced a total of $652 million for 1141 grants in medical research across Australia.
 
 

Making biologically active yet stable antibodies

MEDIA RELEASE: 28 Jun 2012
Garvan scientists have overcome one of the most pressing problems facing the pharmaceutical industry – how to create antibodies that are stable enough to meet stringent requirements necessary for production in large quantities, injection into patients and long-term storage.
 
 

Romain Rouet wins 2011 Castle Harlan Award

09 Nov 2011
Romain Rouet has received the $10,000 USD Castle Harlan Award for being the most outstanding early career PhD student at the Garvan Institute in 2011. Castle Harlan Inc. is a US-based private equity firm that wishes to support the kind of medical research being undertaken at Garvan.
 
 

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