Dimitrios Stamou

CV

Updated 01/01/2019.

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Name:          Dimitrios Stamou (DS)

Born:            24/03/1974 in Athens, Greece

Contact info:[email protected], +45 2498 1658

ACADEMIC DEGREES & TRAINING

1992 – 1995    B.Sc. Hon. Physics, Awarded grade: A-, Leeds University (UK)

1996 – 2000    Ph.D. Physical Chemistry, Ecole Polytechnique Fédéral de Lausanne with Prof. H. Vogel (CH)

2000 – 2002    Postdoctoral Fellow, Ecole Polytechnique Fédéral de Lausanne (CH)

APPOINTMENTS 

2010 -             Professor of Bionanotechnology and Nanomedicine, Department of Chemistry, University of Copenhagen

2006 – 2010    Associate Professor, Department of Neuroscience and Pharmacology, University of Copenhagen

2004 – 2006    Assistant Professor, Department of Neuroscience and Pharmacology, University of Copenhagen

2004 –            Member of the Nano-Science Center, University of Copenhagen

2002 – 2004    First Assistant (Subgroup Leader), Ecole Polytechnique Fédéral de Lausanne

LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH

2018 – 2024    Director of Center of Excellence for Geometrically Engineered Cellular Systems (60M DKK, Novo Nordisk Foundation)

2014 – 2018    PI of NABIIT council Frame grant (23 M DKK). Strategic research activity in collaboration with Novo Nordisk A/S.

2010 – 2015    Director of Center of Excellence for Biomembranes in Nanomedicine (35M DKK, Lundbeck Foundation).

2004 –            DS established and directs the Bio-Nanotechnology and Nanomedicine Laboratory, University of Copenhagen (~210M DKK in external funding).

SELECTED POSITIONS OF TRUST & EDITORIAL WORK

2019 – 2021    European Science Foundation, College of Expert Reviewers

2019 – 2021    Editorial Advisory Board Member for the Journal of General Physiology (IF 3.8)

2017 – 2019    Editorial Board Member for the Biophysical Journal (IF 3.5).

2013 – 2018    Member of steering committee, Large Project, 90M DKK, Advanced Technology Foundation.

2009 – 2014    Member of steering committee, Center for Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology, 28M DKK, Danish Council for Strategic Research

2004 –            Ad hoc reviewer of manuscripts for journals: Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol.; Nat. Meth., Nat. Nanotech.; Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol.; Nat. Comm.; PNAS, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.; Biophys. J.; J. Am. Chem. Soc.; Anal. Chem.; Soft Matter; Langmuir; Nanolett.. 

2004 –            Ad hoc reviewer for grant agencies: National Science Foundation (USA), European Research Council, European Science Foundation, Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, Israel Science Foundations, CNRS.

SUPERVISION

Since 2005 DS has supervised 13 postdocs, and has graduated 12 PhD, 12 MSc and 16 BSc students. 

RECENT INVITED PRESENTATIONS (selected out of >80 since 2006):

• 2010 Gordon Research Conferences, Ligand Recognition & Molecular Gating
• 2011 CNRS Jacques Monod, Molecular basis for membrane remodeling and organization
• 2012 Cold Spring Harbor Lab., Synthetic Biology
• 2013 Benzon Symposium 59, Membrane proteins: Structure, Function and Dynamics
• 2014 Keystone Symposia, G protein coupled receptors
• 2015 Gordon Research Conferences, Mechanisms of Membrane transport
• 2015 FASEB Science Research Conferences, Protein Lipidation, Signalling and Membrane Domains
• 2016 Gordon Research Conferences, Ligand Recognition & Molecular Gating
• 2016 Gordon Research Conferences, Biointerface Science
• 2016 Gordon Research Conferences, Single Molecule Approaches to Biology
• 2018 Gordon Research Conferences, Membrane Transport Proteins

SELECTED AWARDS & HONORS

2019   Thomas E. Thompson Award, Biophysical Society

2017   Best research at Dept. of Chemistry, University of Copenhagen

2016   Torkil Holm, National Prize (50,000 DKK biannual award in all areas of chemical science)

2010   Annual Award of the Danish Biotechnology Society

COLLABORATORS (selected)

J. T. Groves, UC Berkley; B. Kobilka, Stanford University; D. Owen, Cambridge University; R. Jahn, Director Max Planck Gottingen; T. Ha, HHMI Investigator, Johns Hopkins; J. Mindell, NIH; M. Grabe, UC San Fransisco.

OUTREACH

Writing of popular texts, frequent press releases, interviews with national newspapers (e.g. Jyllands Posten, Politiken).

PUBLICATIONS

Since 1997, 69 publications have been accepted in peer reviewed journals including: Science (x3); Nat. Chem. Biol. (x4, two front covers); Nat. Nanotech.; Nat. Meth.; PNAS; EMBO J.; and Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. (x3, two front covers). Web of Science citation index indicates an average of 42 citations per paper and an H-index=31.

RESEARCHER ID

Orcid: 0000-0001-8456-8995

RESEARCH KEYWORDS

Membrane biophysics; membrane protein biophysics; membrane curvature; quantitative fluorescence microscopy; single molecule biology.

SELECTED PEER REVIEWED ARTICLES (* corresponding author)

1. Nature Chemical Biology, 2017. 13: p. 724-729. Front Cover Page
   Membrane curvature regulates ligand-specific membrane sorting of GPCRs in living cells               
   K.R. Rosholm, N. Leijnse, A. Mantsiou, V. Tkach, S.L. Pedersen, V.F. Wirth, L.B. Oddershede, K.J. Jensen, K.L. Martinez, N.S. Hatzakis, P.M. Bendix, A. Callan-Jones, and D. Stamou*
2. Science, 2016.351 (6280): p. 1469-1473
   Direct observation of proton pumping by a eukaryotic P-type ATPase               
   S. Veshaguri, S.M. Christensen, G.C. Kemmer, M.P. Møller, G. Ghale, C. Lohr, A.L. Christensen, B.H. Justesen, I.L. Jørgensen, J. Schiller, N.S. Hatzakis, M.Grabe, T.G. Pomorski,D. Stamou*
3. Nature Chemical Biology, 2015. 11 (11): p. 822-825     
   Membrane curvature bends the laws of physics and chemistry        
   L.  Iversen, S. Mathiasen, J.B. Larsen,D.Stamou*
4. Nature Chemical Biology, 2015. 11 (3): p. 192-194. Front Cover Page        
   Membrane curvature enables N-Ras lipid anchor sorting to liquid-ordered membrane phases          
   J.B. Larsen, M. B. Jensen, V.K. Bhatia, S.L. Pedersen, T. Bjørnholm, L. Iversen, M. Uline, I. Szleifer, K.J. Jensen, N.S. Hatzakis and D. Stamou*
5. Nature Methods, 2014. 11 (9): p. 931-934
   Nanoscale high content analysis using compositional heterogeneities of single proteoliposomes       
   S. Mathiasen, S.M. Christensen^,, J.J Fung, S.G.F. Rasmussen, J.F. Fay, S.K. Joergensen, S. Veshaguri, D.L. Farrens, M. Byrne, B. Kobilka, D. Stamou*
6. Science, 2014, 345 (6192): p. 50-54
   Single molecule analysis of Ras activation by SOS reveals allosteric regulation via altered fluctuation dynamics                
   L. Iversen, H.-L. Tu, W.-C. Lin, S. M. Christensen, S. M. Abel, J. Iwig, H.-J. Wu, J. Gureasko, C. Rhodes, R. S. Petit, S. D. Hansen, P. Thill, C.-H. Yu,D. Stamou, A. K. Chakraborty, J. Kuriyan, J. T. Groves*.                                  
7. Nature Nanotechnology, 2012. 7 (1): p. 51–55              
   Mixing sub-attolitre volumes in a quantitative and highly parallel manner with soft matter nanofluidics. 
   S. M. Christensen; P.Y. Bolinger; N.S. Hatzakis; M.W. Mortensen and D. Stamou*
8. Nature Chemical Biology, 2009. 5 (11): p. 835 
   How Curved Membranes Recognize Amphipathic Helices and Protein Anchoring Motifs. 
   N. S. Hatzakis, V. K. Bhatia, J. Larsen, K. L. Madsen, P. Y. Bolinger, A. H. Kunding, J. Castillo, U. Gether, P. Hedegård and D. Stamou*

Short presentation

Dimitrios Stamou is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and the Nanoscience Center at the University of Copenhagen. He received his primary education in Greece, and his Bachelor’s in Physics from Leeds University in England. During his PhD and postdoc at the Swiss Federal Polytechnique School in Lausanne, he worked on surface-patterning of self-assembled monolayers, bilayers and vesicles under the guidance of Claus Duschl and Horst Vogel. He established his own group at the University of Copenhagen in 2004 with a focus on the biophysics of membranes and membrane proteins. 

Dimitrios has developed disruptive technologies that made significant contributions in two major fields:

 Single molecule biology. In a breakthrough paper in Science (2016) he developed a method that resolved ionic currents with sensitivity 10⁶-fold higher than the Nobel prize awarded method of patch clamp. These transformative studies enabled him to observe for the first time the function of single transporter molecules, and revealed that transporter function and regulation is controlled by long-lived on/off states (similarly to ion channels). In collaboration with the Groves lab, he reached a related conclusion, using a novel assay able to observe for the first time at the single molecule level the activation of the oncogene small GTPase Ras (Science 2014).

 Membrane biophysics. To understand the origins and biological function of Membrane Polymorphism (the distinct shapes assumed by cells and cellular organelles), Dimitrios developed a series of methods investigate quantitatively membrane curvature/shape. One of the most important insights emerging from this work was identifying and characterizing two novel classes of membrane curvature sensors which are of ubiquitous biological and pharmacological importance: lipidated proteins (Nat. Chem. Biol. 2009, 2015a, 2015b) and G-protein coupled receptors (Nat. Chem. Biol. 2017).

 Dimitrios also pioneered the development of methods to investigate individual proteoliposomes revealing that ensemble populations of proteoliposomes can be dramatically heterogeneous. He demonstrated that such heterogeneities can severely skew ensemble-average measurements of biophysical and biochemical proteoliposome properties, but also enable a new generation of high-throughput ultraminiaturised assays with 10⁹-fold lower sample consumption (Nat. Nanotech. 2012; Nat. Meth. 2014).

Fields of interest

Membrane biophysics; membrane protein biophysics; membrane curvature; quantitative fluorescence microscopy; single molecule biology.