Prof. Dr. Rebecca Wade

Group Leader Molecular and Cellular Modeling

Contact

Phone: +49 6221 – 533 – 247

Fax: +49 6221 – 533 – 298

Short biography

Rebecca Wade studied at the University of Oxford (B.A. Hons. in physics, 1985; D. Phil. in Molecular Biophysics, 1988). She then carried out postdoctoral research at the universities of Houston and Illinois before taking up a position as a group leader in the Structural and Computational Biology Programme at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg in 1992. Rebecca Wade set up the Molecular and Cellular Modeling Group at HITS (then known as the European Media Laboratory and later as EML Research) in 2001. She was Adjunct Professor at the International University in Germany in Bruchsal from 2001-2003. Rebecca Wade was appointed full Professor at Heidelberg University in 2012 and is a member of the Faculty of Engineering Sciences and the Faculty of Biosciences. She was Scientific Director of HITS from 2015 to 2016 and since 2025 is Deputy Scientific Director of HITS.

Research interests

In the Molecular and Cellular Modeling group, our main focus is on proteins and finding out how they interact with their molecular binding partners and function. We develop and apply computational approaches to address questions such as: How do proteins recognize and distinguish their binding partners? How tightly and quickly do they bind? By what mechanisms do they bind? Can binding partners and binding modes be predicted? Our studies are mostly based on the three-dimensional structures of macromolecules. We aim to make concerted use of bioinformatics and physical simulation approaches in order to develop methods for understanding how biomolecules work and for aiding the rational design of therapeutic agents. Techniques cover a wide spectrum from interactive, web-based visualization tools to machine learning to molecular and Brownian dynamics simulations. Applications range from in-depth simulation studies of particular proteins to large-scale computational analysis of protein families.

See the Molecular and Cellular Modeling (MCM) group News for a glimpse of recent activities.

Selected professional activities and awards

Publications

Teaching

Lectures, courses and tutorials

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