Christopher M. Overall

Biography

 Dr. Overall is a Professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Proteinase Proteomics and Systems Biology at the University of British Columbia, Department of Oral biological and Medical Sciences, and Centre for Blood Research. He completed his undergraduate, Honors Science and Masters degrees at the University of Adelaide, South Australia; his Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the University of Toronto; and was a MRC Centennial Fellow in his post-doctoral work with Dr. Michael Smith, Nobel Laureate, Biotechnology Laboratory, University of British Columbia. On Sabbatical in 1997-1998 he was a Visiting Senior Scientist at British Biotech Pharmaceuticals, Oxford, UK and in 2004/2008 he was a Visiting Senior Scientist at the Expert Protease Platform, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Basel, Switzerland where he learned industrial scale concepts and the science of drug development. Professor Overall was a member of the: Centre for Protease Research, Department of Chemistry, North Dakota State University, External Advisory Committee (2005-2009); Protease Platform, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge, MA, Review Panel (2005); FP7-EU-Project on Proteases in Inflammatory Bowel Disease Expert Advisory Board (2007-2011); and was the External Advisor for the Huntington's Disease Proteolysis and Post-translational Modification Team, HDSA Coalition for the Cure (2004-2010). More recently he is on the Executive of the BC Proteomics Network (BCPN) (2006-); the Scientific Advisory Board of the Proteome Society (Canadian Chapter) (2004-2006); Vice President Internal CNPN in 2012-2013; Chair of the Foreign Scientific Advisor Board of the Australian Proteomics Network (2004-); Editorial Board of the premier proteomics journal, Molecular Cellular Proteomics (2011-); Editor of a Special Issue in the Journal of Proteomics (2014); and an External Senior Fellow, Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies, Albert-Ludwigs Universität Freiburg, Germany. In June 2014 He was appointed as an Honorary Professor, Albert-Ludwigs Universität Freiburg.    Dr. Overall won the Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis CIHR Award as 2002 CIHR Scientist of the Year, the University of British Columbia Killam Senior Researcher Award (Science) 2005, and was the Chair of the 2003 Matrix Metalloproteinase Gordon Research Conference and the 2010 Protease Gordon Research Conference. He is a regular a plenary speaker at HUPO conferences and organized a featured symposium "Can proteomics fill the gap between genomics and phenotypes?" at the 2012 AAAS conference.     Since becoming a Canada research Chair he has published 158 papers of a career total 203 — 6 by invitation from Nature Reviews Journals, 11 appeared in Science, Science Signaling and Nature Journals, 3 in PNAS, and 1 in PLoS Biology. The "Faculty of 1000" highlighted 8 of his papers for their significance. In total, Dr. Overall's papers have been cited 12,626 times on an upward trajectory; publications since 2000 were cited 8,813 times including 7 with over 350 citations. His discoveries have resulted in 3 patents, 17 more UBC Invention Disclosures, and the trademark for the CLIP-CHIP™. Since 2000 he has diffused his findings via 149 invited plenary or keynote presentations at conferences (129 outside Canada), by 135 seminars at universities, institutes and companies (102 outside Canada) and 219 talks or posters by trainees. He organized a CABMB Workshop, "Degradomics. Systems Biology of the Protease Web", Edmonton (2006); an AAAS featured symposium, "Can proteomics fill the gap between genomics and phenotypes?" (2012); and the 5th CNPN Annual Conference (2013).    In total Dr. Overall has trained 37 PhD students and Post Doctoral scientists, 31 of whom remain in science: 2 are Departmental Chairs, 4 are Full or Associate Professors, 4 are Assistant Professors or equivalent, 8 are scientists in industry, 4 are Research Associates, 7 are post-doctoral research fellows and 2 are currently pursuing their PhD.    Professor Overall is also the pioneer of degradomics, a term he coined and with an h factor of 62 and 19 Nature Review, Nature Journal, Science and Science Signaling papers he is a leader in the field, which was recently recognized by the International Society of Proteolysis with a Lifetime Achievement Award in October 2011; by the Matrix Biology Society of Australia and New Zealand with the 2012 Barry Preston Award; in 2013 by the International Association of Dental Research Distinguished Scientist Award for Research in Oral Biology; and in 2014 by the Tony Pawson Canadian National Proteomics Network Award for Outstanding Contribution and Leadership to the Canadian Proteomics Community. 

Research Interest

 Proteomics, degradomics, Human Proteome Project, proteases, MMPs, extracellular matrix biology, anti-viral immunity, innate immunity.