Prof. Christoph Rader

Biography

 Prof. Christoph Rader is Associate Professor with Tenure position in the Department of Cancer Biology and the Department of Molecular Therapeutics at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) in Jupiter, Florida, USA. Before this he was principal investigator at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Bethesda, Maryland, USA. Prof. Rader studied biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Bayreuth in Germany and at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, where he also obtained his PhD with honors in 1995 for work on immunoglobulin superfamily molecules. After this he did several years of postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Carlos F. Barbas III at TSRI in La Jolla, California, USA, where he specialized in antibody engineering, phage display, and catalytic antibody technologies. Following his promotion to Assistant Professor at TSRI, he won the prestigious Investigator Award from the Cancer Research Institute in 2000.  Prof. Rader’s work contributed to the invention of chemically programmed monoclonal antibodies, a cross between traditional small molecules and a certain monoclonal antibody. This innovation was subsequently commercialized, and is the basis for several new drugs currently in ongoing phase I and II clinical trials for the treatment of various cancers and metabolic diseases. Prof. Rader joined the NCI in 2003 to build and lead the Antibody Technology Section in the Experimental Transplantation and Immunology Branch. In 2007, he received the NCI Director's Intramural Innovation Award for Principal Investigators for a novel chemical programming concept.  His achievements include more than 80 publications and 13 patents or patent applications in the area of antibody engineering and antibody drug/toxin conjugation technologies.

Research Interest

 Cancer Biology, Molecular Therapeutics