Charles M. Deber

Biography

Charles Deber was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He received his BSc from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (working with Murray Goodman); his PhD in Organic Chemistry from MIT (Arthur Cope); and was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School (Elkan Blout) and research associate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Enzyme Institute (Henry Lardy). He joined the Research Institute at the Hospital for Sick Children in 1976, with cross-appointment to the University of Toronto Department of Biochemistry. Dr. Deber was recognized by the American Peptide Society with the Vincent du Vigneaud Award in 2000 for “Outstanding Career Achievements in Peptide Research”, and the Murray Goodman Scientific Excellence and Mentorship Award in 2009. At U. of T., he received the W.T. Aikins Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching in the Faculty of Medicine. Dr. Deber was elected in 2001 as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC). Dr. Deber’s research utilizes natural and de novo designed hydrophobic peptides and proteins, and the application of spectroscopic techniques, molecular modeling, and bioinformatics, to investigate the interactions and structures of peptides and proteins within membranes, how membrane-embedded mutations underlie protein misfolding diseases, and how knowledge gained from these studies can be applied to the development of membrane-interactive peptide therapeutics.

Research Interest

Peptide and Protein Structure in Membranes: From Folding to Drug Discovery