Jan Korbel

Jan O. Korbel, PhD, Group Leader, Genome Biology Unit, European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Heidelberg, Germany

Jan Korbel is a Group Leader at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, in the Genome Biology Unit, as well as in the joint Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit of the EMBL and the University of Heidelberg Medical Faculty. Prior to his position at EMBL, Jan co-developed the paired-end mapping technique enabling the characterization of genomic structural variants by massively-parallel DNA sequencing, at Yale University. With expertise in Human Genetics and Computational Biology, Jan’s research focuses on structural variation of the genome in the germline and in cancer. His group has developed several approaches for the characterization of structural variation and applied these to identify the extent, origin, and functional consequences of different genomic alteration processes in the germline and in cancers, including in pediatric brain tumors and prostate cancer. He is particularly interested in understanding determinants of structural variation processes, including catastrophic DNA rearrangement and DNA regulatory context-altering rearrangement processes. Jan has a leading role in the 1000 Genomes Project and the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Initiative, a recently launched international initiative to harmonize the world’s cancer genomes for integrative analyses which is organized within the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC). Jan Korbel is a European Research Council (ERC) Investigator, recipient of several research awards including the Chica and Heinz Schaller Research award, elected member of the EMBO and the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, and editorial board member for Genome Research, Molecular Systems Biology, and Cell.