How to Pronounce Robert E. W. Hancock
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Mar 23, 1949 75 years old
Canadian microbiologist
AriesRobert E. W. Hancock - Place of Birth, Date of Birth, Age, Wiki, Facts, Net Worth, Birthday, Biography and Family
Robert E. W. Hancock, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Family, Facts, Age, Net Worth, Biography and More in FamedBorn.com
About Robert E. W. Hancock
- Robert E.
- W.
- Hancock (born March 23, 1949) is a Canadian microbiologist and University of British Columbia, (UBC) Killam Professor of Microbiology and Immunology , an Associate Faculty Member of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and a Canada Research Chair in Health and Genomics. Hancock is “considered a world leader in his field” and is most known for his work on cationic host defence (antimicrobial) peptides and finding alternate treatments to antibiotic resistance. At an early age Hancock recognized that he wanted to produce something “useful” and decided he was going to become a scientist, his dream was further reinforced years later when he read an article on the discovery of penicillin and he was struck by the powers of observation that led to this discovery.He received his PhD in microbiology in 1975 from the University of Adelaide where he studied bacteriophage receptors for his PhD thesis and then went on to study the E.
- coli outer membrane at the University of Tübingen in Germany.
- Following his studies in Germany, Hancock spent a year at the University of California, Berkeley where he began his work on Pseudomonas aeruginosa and porins proteins that form channels in membranes.
- Three years after completing his PhD, he began his career at the University of British Columbia, starting as an Assistant Professor.
- While at UBC he came up with the self-promoted uptake theory, the idea that antibiotics promote their own uptake across the cell membrane.
- This discovery shaped much of the work done in the Hancock Lab today. He became interested in studying antibiotic resistance mechanisms in Pseudomonas aeruginosa and this eventually morphed into his involvement in sequencing the genome of Pseudomonas, only the 4th bacterial genome to be sequenced, identifying new mechanisms of antibiotic resistance especially dependent on lifestyle adaptations in Pseudomonas, and then finding new therapeutics for treating antibiotic resistant pathogens.
- His research morphed into investigating small cationic peptides from nature, originally termed cationic antimicrobial peptides, but eventually "host defence peptides" and as his research progressed he became one of the first and most prominent advocates that the major function of these peptides was as modulators of the immune system.
- To understand the role of these peptides as modulators of the immune system he developed InnateDB and NetworkAnalyst as tools to enable systems/network biology studies and insights.Currently Hancock and his lab’s research interests include small cationic peptides as novel antimicrobials, broad-spectrum anti-biofilm agents, and modulators of innate immunity, the development of novel treatments for antibiotic resistant infections and inflammation, the systems biology of innate immunity, inflammatory diseases and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and antibiotic uptake and resistance. Over his career he has published more than 730 papers and reviews, has 65 patents awarded, and is an ISI highly cited author in Microbiology with more than 91,000 citations and an h-index of 155.
- He has won several awards and is an Officer of the Order of Canada.
- He is a co-founder of Migenix, Inimex Pharmaceuticals, ABT Innovations, Sepset Biotherapeutics, and the Centre for Drug Research and Development.
