Steven Spoel is Professor of Cell Signalling and Proteostasis at the University of Edinburgh.
After completing an MSc at Utrecht University (Netherlands), he moved to Duke University (USA) for his PhD degree and subsequently was awarded an EMBO Long-Term Fellowship and a Netherlands Science Foundation Rubicon Fellowship for postdoctoral work at the University of Edinburgh.
In 2010 he started his lab with a Royal Society University Research Fellowship and aims to understand how upon exposure to stress, plant cells orchestrate dramatic reprogramming of gene expression to prioritise defence responses over other cellular functions.
In this context the roles of diverse post-translational protein modifications are of particular interest.
Steven has been recipient of the New Phytologist Tansley Medal (2010), the Early Excellence in Science Award from the Bayer Foundation (2013), and two consecutive grants from the European Research Council.
He was Chair of the GARNet Advisory Board (2017 to 2020), a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council-funded network that promotes competitiveness and productivity of the UK plant science community.
He currently is an advisor for the Scottish Universities Life Science Alliance and member of the Gatsby Plant Science Advisory Board.
Since 2018, he is Head of the Institute of Molecular Plant Sciences at the University of Edinburgh.
Last updated: 1 April 2022