David Komander studies the ubiquitin system and has considerably expanded our understanding of the 'Ubiquitin Code'. He showed that many proteins in the ubiquitin system assemble, recognise and cleave ubiquitin chains with high linkage specificity, developed methods to study ubiquitination and deubiquitinases (DUBs), and explained linkage-specificity using structural biology methods. He discovered OTULIN as a new human DUB, and showed its role in inflammation and autoinflammatory disorders. Komander's work also explained how PINK1, Parkin and USP30 regulate mitochondrial turnover via phosphorylated ubiquitin, with relevance in early-onset Parkinson’s Disease.
David studied in Germany and received his PhD from the University of Dundee, Scotland. He started to work on ubiquitination as a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Cancer Research, London, and led a group at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology from 2008. Since 2018, he heads the Ubiquitin Signalling Division at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI) in Melbourne, Australia.
David is a member of EMBO, the Lister Institute, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Sciences.
Professional position
- Head, Ubiquitin Signalling Division, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI)
- Professor, Department of Medical Biology, University of Melbourne
Subject groups
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Molecules of Life
Biochemistry and molecular biology, Biophysics and structural biology, Cell biology (incl molecular cell biology)
