Dario Alessi

Dario Alessi FRSE FRS (born in France, 1967) is a biochemist, Director of the Medical Research Council Protein Phosphorylation and Ubiquitylation Unit (MRC PPU) and Professor of Signal Transduction, at University of Dundee.

Education and Career

He attended high school in Brussels. He graduated from the University of Birmingham, with a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry in 1988, and with a Ph.D. in 1991, where he studied with Ian Trayer and David Trentham. His postdoctoral research was with Sir Philip Cohen FRS from 1991 to 1997. He became Professor of Signal Transduction at the University of Dundee in 2003 and Director of the MRC Protein Phosphorylation and Ubiquitylation Unit (MRC PPU) in 2012.

Research

Alessi’s work is concerned with unravelling the roles of poorly characterised components which regulate protein phosphorylation or ubiquitylation that have emerged from the genetic analysis of human disease. The aim of his research is to provide new knowledge to enable researchers to devise improved strategies for the treatment of disease. Dario Alessi is also the current Director of the Division of Signal Transduction Therapy Unit (DSTT) that is a unique collaboration between University of Dundee and six major pharmaceutical companies (AstraZeneca, Boehringer-Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck KgaA, Janssen Pharmaceutica and Pfizer) that aims to accelerate drug discovery in the areas of protein phosphorylation and ubiquitylation. As of 2013 he has written over 180 peer-reviewed papers and has been cited more than 32,000 times, making him one of most highly cited biochemists in the world.