Stefan Schuster (born 7 November 1961 in Meissen) is a German biophysicist. He is professor for bioinformatics at the University of Jena.

Stefan Schuster
Born (1961-11-07) 7 November 1961 (age 63)
NationalityGerman
Alma materHumboldt University of Berlin
Known formetabolism, signal transduction, metabolic control analysis, evolutionary game theory
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of Jena
Thesis Theoretical studies on the interrelation between time hierarchy in enzymatic reaction systems and optimization principles
Academic advisorsReinhart Heinrich

Life

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Stefan Schuster studied biophysics at the Humboldt University Berlin and wrote his PhD thesis under the supervision of Prof. Reinhart Heinrich at the Department of Theoretical Biophysics at Humboldt University, Berlin (Title: "Theoretical studies on the interrelation between time hierarchy in enzymatic reaction systems and optimization principles"). In 2003 he got a professorship at the Department of Bioinformatics at the Friedrich Schiller University, Jena.

Stefan Schuster is one of the spokesmen of the Jena Centre for Bioinformatics (JCB).

Stefan Schuster is currently editor of the Elsevier journal BioSystems.

His younger brother is the stage director Robert Schuster.

Research

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The research by Stefan Schuster comprises a wide range of topics in bioinformatics and systems biology. These include, among others:

Stefan Schuster has significantly contributed to the development of elementary mode analysis.[6][7][8] That method has amply been used ever since for determining metabolic pathways and diverse applications in biotechnology such as calculating optimal molar yields. Schuster and his coworkers used the method, for example, for analyzing penicillin production[9] and NAD+ metabolism[10] as well as for predicting the viability of Escherichia coli mutants.[11] He contributed to the development of software for metabolic pathway analysis.[12]

An application of intense biochemical interest is the question whether humans and other higher animals could convert fatty acids into sugar. While biochemical textbook knowledge says that this would be infeasible, in silico analyses by Christoph Kaleta, Stefan Schuster and coworkers showed that there are, in principle, several entangled routes on which gluconeogenesis from fatty acid is feasible. This theoretical prediction found considerable attention in online articles.[13][14]

Research on metabolic pathways includes flux balance analysis, which is used, for example, for explaining the Warburg effect.[15]

The book of Reinhard Heinrich and Stefan Schuster "The Regulation of Cellular Systems"[16] was reviewed by Athel Cornish-Bowden.[17] He wrote: "For general readers, it would be a major advance if books like this one could help to overthrow the ideas of rate-limiting steps that have bedevilled the biochemical conception of metabolism for so long, preventing biotechnology from realizing many of the objectives that were promised when genetic engineering first became possible. For specialists already concerned with the kinetic behaviour of multi-enzyme systems, this is a book they need to have".

References

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  1. ^ Pfeiffer, T.; Schuster, S. (2005). "Game-theoretical approaches to studying the evolution of biochemical systems". Trends in Biochemical Sciences. 30 (1): 20–25. doi:10.1016/j.tibs.2004.11.006. PMID 15653322.
  2. ^ Schuster, S. (1996). "Control Analysis in Terms of Generalized Variables Characterizing Metabolic Systems". Journal of Theoretical Biology. 182 (3): 259–268. Bibcode:1996JThBi.182..259S. doi:10.1006/jtbi.1996.0163. PMID 8944157.
  3. ^ Schuster, S.; Marhl, M.; Höfer, T. (2002). "Modelling of simple and complex calcium oscillations: From single-cell responses to intercellular signalling". European Journal of Biochemistry. 269 (5): 1333–1355. doi:10.1046/j.0014-2956.2001.02720.x. PMID 11874447.
  4. ^ Bodenstein, C.; Heiland, I.; Schuster, S. (2012). "Temperature compensation and entrainment in circadian rhythms". Physical Biology. 9 (3): 036011. Bibcode:2012PhBio...9c6011B. doi:10.1088/1478-3975/9/3/036011. ISSN 1478-3967. PMID 22683844. S2CID 22888493.
  5. ^ Schuster, S.; de Figueiredo, L.F.; Schroeter, A.; Kaleta, C. (2011). "Combining Metabolic Pathway Analysis with Evolutionary Game Theory. Explaining the occurrence of low-yield pathways by an analytic optimization approach". Biosystems. 105 (2): 147–153. Bibcode:2011BiSys.105..147S. doi:10.1016/j.biosystems.2011.05.007. PMID 21620931.
  6. ^ Schuster, S.; Hilgetag, C.; Woods, J.H.; Fell, D.A. (2002). "Reaction routes in biochemical reaction systems: Algebraic properties, validated calculation procedure and example from nucleotide metabolism". Journal of Mathematical Biology. 45 (2): 153–181. doi:10.1007/s002850200143. ISSN 0303-6812. PMID 12181603. S2CID 18109186.
  7. ^ Schuster, S; Dandekar, T; Fell, D.A. (1999). "Detection of elementary flux modes in biochemical networks: a promising tool for pathway analysis and metabolic engineering". Trends in Biotechnology. 17 (2): 53–60. doi:10.1016/S0167-7799(98)01290-6. PMID 10087604.
  8. ^ Schuster, S.; Fell, D.A.; Dandekar, T. (2000). "A general definition of metabolic pathways useful for systematic organization and analysis of complex metabolic networks". Nature Biotechnology. 18 (3): 326–332. doi:10.1038/73786. ISSN 1087-0156. PMID 10700151. S2CID 7742485.
  9. ^ Prauße, M.T.E.; Schäuble, S.; Guthke, R.; Schuster, S. (2016). "Computing the various pathways of penicillin synthesis and their molar yields". Biotechnology and Bioengineering. 113 (1): 173–181. doi:10.1002/bit.25694. PMID 26134880. S2CID 31216001.
  10. ^ de Figueiredo, L.F.; Gossmann, T.I.; Ziegler, M.; Schuster, S. (2011). "Pathway analysis of NAD + metabolism" (PDF). Biochemical Journal. 439 (2): 341–348. doi:10.1042/BJ20110320. ISSN 0264-6021. PMID 21729004.
  11. ^ Stelling, J.; Klamt, S.; Bettenbrock, K.; Schuster, S.; Gilles, E.D. (2002). "Metabolic network structure determines key aspects of functionality and regulation". Nature. 420 (6912): 190–193. Bibcode:2002Natur.420..190S. doi:10.1038/nature01166. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 12432396. S2CID 4301741.
  12. ^ Kamp, A. von; Schuster, S. (2006). "Metatool 5.0: fast and flexible elementary modes analysis". Bioinformatics. 22 (15): 1930–1931. doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btl267. ISSN 1367-4803. PMID 16731697.
  13. ^ Informationsdienst Wissenschaft
  14. ^ Ärztezeitung 2011
  15. ^ Schuster, S.; Boley, D.; Moller, P.; Stark, H.; Kaleta, C. (2015). "Mathematical models for explaining the Warburg effect: a review focussed on ATP and biomass production". Biochemical Society Transactions. 43 (6): 1187–1194. doi:10.1042/BST20150153. ISSN 0300-5127. PMID 26614659.
  16. ^ Heinrich, R.; Schuster, S. (1996). The Regulation of Cellular Systems. Boston, MA: Springer US. ISBN 9781461311614. OCLC 840281317.
  17. ^ Cornish-Bowden, A. (1998). "The Regulation of Cellular Systems, by Reinhart Heinrich and Stefan Schuster, Chapman and Hall, New York, 1996. 372 pp". Bulletin of Mathematical Biology. 59 (5): 1027–1028. doi:10.1016/S0092-8240(97)00050-5.
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