Prof. Tuomas Knowles
Head of Kinetics
Professor Knowles is Head of Kinetics for Wren Therapeutics. He is a Professor of Physical Chemistry and Biophysics in the Department of Chemistry and at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. Professor Knowles is co-director of the Cambridge Centre for Protein Misfolding Diseases at the University of Cambridge.
Professor Knowles has received several distinguished awards for his work including the Harrison Meldola Memorial Prize (2012) and the Corday-Morgan Prize (2017) awarded by The Royal Society of Chemistry, and the Raymond and Beverly Sackler International Prize in Biophysics (2017).
Professor Knowles research focuses on applying physical approaches to study the self-assembly of protein molecules in the context of both biological function and malfunction. His groundbreaking work on the chemical kinetics of protein misfolding and self-assembly, in particular, has transformed our understanding of the pathways that generate the aberrant forms of misfolded proteins believed to be the primary cause of disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.
Professor Knowles studied Biology at the University of Geneva, and Physics at ETH Zurich. He moved to Cambridge in 2004 to work towards his PhD in the Cavendish Laboratory and the Nanoscience Centre. In 2008 Professor Knowles was elected to a Research Fellowship at St John’s College, Cambridge, and was then appointed successively to a University Lectureship, Readership and Professorship. Since 2016, he holds Professorships in both the Department of Chemistry and the Cavendish Laboratory (Department of Physics).
Professor Knowles has co-authored over 200 peer-reviewed scientific articles.
Publications by Prof. Tuomas Knowles
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Drug discovery | Sep 2020
Kinetic fingerprints differentiate the mechanisms of anti-Aβ antibodies
Linse S, Scheidt T, Bernfur K, Vendruscolo M, Dobson CM, Cohen SI, Sileikis E, Lundquist M, Qian F, O’Malley T, Bussiere T, Weinreb PH, Xu CK, Meisl G, Devenish SR, Knowles TP, Hansson O
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Methods | Jun 2020
Rational design of a conformation-specific antibody for the quantification of Aβ oligomers
Aprile FA, Sormanni P, Podpolny M, Chhangur S, Needham L, Ruggeri FS, Perni M, Limbocker R, Heller GT, Sneideris T, Scheidt T, Mannini B, Habchi J, Lee SF, Salinas PC, Knowles TP, Dobson CM and Vendruscolo M.
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Disease Mechanisms | Apr 2020
Determining dynamics during amyloid assembly
Michaels TC, Šarić A, Curk S, Bernfur K, Arosio P, Meisl G, Dear AJ, Cohen SI, Dobson CM, Vendruscolo M, Linse S and Knowles TP.
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Drug discovery | Oct 2018
SAR by kinetics for drug discovery in protein misfolding diseases
Chia S, Habchi J, Michaels TC, Cohen SI, Linse S, Dobson CM, Knowles TP and Vendruscolo M.