Shirley Knauer: Seeking magic bullets for cancer
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- Goals can be more quickly achieved when working together, believes Shirley Knauer, a keen believer in interdisciplinarity. Shirley Knauer. Source: Claudia Geipel
05.06.2014 -
Assistant professor at 33 as well as recipient of half a dozen scientific awards. Shirley Knauer’s academic career has progressed at lightning speed. Today, the 37-year-old native of Fürth heads her own working group at the Centre for Medical Biotechnology at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Her speciality area is vital molecules that keep the reins on the development of cancer, such as the protein with the amusingly appropriate name ‘survivin’. Last year she was awarded the German Life Science Award for her research into tumour-relevant proteins.
As she looks back over her rapid career rise, Shirley Knauer makes the impression of a likeable, modest as well as forthright person. Anybody hoping to make a splash in science could do well to take note of her motivation and diligence. With a touch of regret, however, the successful scientist also says that she would recommend a different model for young women with firm family plans. “I have probably always been ambitious,” says Knauer. As a child, the little Shirley piled the pressure on her parents until they allowed her to begin school at the age of six instead of a year later, as originally planned. The first academic in her family, she began her studies in biology just 15 kilometres away in Erlangen. Today, she emphasises proudly that her family had no means of financially supporting her studies. Through scientific part-time jobs, numerous awards and scholarships, including long-standing support from the German National Academic Foundation, she was ultimately able to finance her studies by her own means. For the curious among our readers, Shirley’s name – positively exotic for a native of Middle Franconia – is the result of her mother’s enthusiasm for the actress Shirley Temple.
Following the footsteps of Paul Ehrlich
After completing her degree dissertation in 2001, Knauer left Erlangen to undertake her post-doctorate studies under the direction of Roland Stauber at the chemotherapeutic research institute Georg-Speyer-Haus in Frankfurt am Main. The institute also counts pharmacy pioneer Paul Ehrlich, who conducted research there in the early 20th Century, among its luminaries. “During my work, I was able to look through the window into his laboratories. Ehrlich's idea at the time was to find magic bullets, namely specific chemical substances, which could be possible used to cure a disease or even numerous diseases in a single stroke. In this way, he invented the first chemotherapeutic agent,” says Knauer. “This idea continues to influence my research,” she adds. “While we do want to understand molecular biological relationships, at the same time we are also searching for individual substances that can specifically attack these mechanisms.”
Knauer eventually completed her post-doctoral fellowship with ‘summa cum laude’ and followed Stauber to the University Hospital Mainz. There, supported by an independent scholarship from the Peter and Traudl Engelhorn Foundation, she took on a post as junior group leader in the Molecular and Cellular Oncology department. Her assistant professorship followed 2008, in which she described the spread in the cell of the cancer protein survivin. Two years later at the tender age of just 33 she became Assistant Professor of Molecular Biology at the Centre for Medical Biotechnology, University of Duisburg-Essen.
A buddy type – with sharp elbows
Referring to the student office hours, the then newly appointed Assistant Professor says that she first tried to shake off the newcomers, and would instead send them to her secretary. Despite such tactics, she nevertheless quickly gained acceptance in her new post. “As a young woman, you have to thump the table that bit harder. Above all for students, it is not always easy to gain respect,” says the biomedical scientist. But she is not resentful, and colleagues and students describe her today as the ‘buddy’ type. “If the students really bring their A-game, then they have little to worry about with me.” But what she won’t tolerate is: “Laziness and nonchalance”.
On the hunt for accomplices
This attitude means that cancer cells have all the more to worry about: Knauer is hunting them down with all the passion that has taken her to the top of the field. More specifically, she is shedding light on how they spread and defend themselves against treatment. At this time, she and her multidisciplinary team are concentrating on the tumour-relevant proteins survivin and taspase 1. Abnormal regulation of survivin promotes the growth of tumours by facilitating the division of cancer cells. Moreover, the protein inhibits cell death and the repair of DNA damage in cancer cells following radiation treatment. “If we succeed in developing inhibitors against these functions, we could improve current therapies or develop new therapeutic approaches.” Knauer and her team have already identified promising chemical compounds.
Taking the form of ‘molecular scissors’, the enzyme taspase 1 is involved in the development of leukaemia and other cancers. Together with her team, Knauer has identified over 25 proteins that are placed under attack by taspase. The researchers are now working on an active substance that binds to the individual taspase molecules in the cell, thereby rendering them harmless. “Because the enzyme for the cell does not appear to be vital to survival, the inhibition could work without serious side effects,” says Knauer. In March 2013, for their achievements in basic research as well as in clinical research on the tumour-relevant proteins survivin and Taspase 1, Knauer received €25,000 in prize money from the German Life Science Award, which is coordinated by the German Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the pharmaceutical company Roche.
Priorities for the future
The junior professor is optimistic about the future. “It was a good decision to go to Essen because I have real scientific freedoms and enjoy strong support.” Up to 2017, she will be sub-project manager in the new ‘Supramolecular Chemistry’ collaborative research centre. She is especially proud of this work, where she is involved in establishing a direct link with other disciplines. Now the students have no real chance of removing their professor, reveals Knauer. Nevertheless, she doesn’t want to tie herself down. Her main base is in Mainz, where she lives with her husband. “That’s the flip side of the coin,” says Knauer. This distance from her workplace means that planning a family is currently impossible, she says a touch regretfully. “A position in the Rhine-Main area would be nice. But I wouldn’t want to put my career on hold just yet.”
On weekends she is drawn to the outdoors. “Ideally, I’ll ride my bike out to the lake, where I can get some time to myself and go for a swim.” She is also able to apply her laboratory principles to the kitchen. Together with her husband, she’s no stranger to the art of molecular cuisine. “I try out lots of things, be it sport, in the kitchen, or even in the laboratory.”
Author: Benjamin Stolzenberg
