David Suter (biologist)

Since 2013 he has been an professor at EPFL, where he heads the Suter Lab at the Institute of Bioengineering of the School of Life Sciences.

Suter is a member of several institutions such as Board Member of the Swiss Stem Cell Network, International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) and European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ESGCT). Formerly, he held a Swiss National Science Foundation Professorship (2013-2019).

In 2011, he became a post-doctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Xiaoliang Sunney Xie at Harvard University. Together with Christof Gebhardt, Suter developed a new technology allowing to visualize and measure the residence time of single molecules of transcription factors binding to DNA. Using this technology, they were able to determine the residence time of various transcription factors on DNA and allowed for the measurement of the fraction of DNA-bound molecules in the transcription factor population. Thereby they were able to distinguish three different modes of DNA binding (dimeric, monomeric, and indirect), and to simultaneously record DNA binding events of two heterodimeric partners. By extending the technology to determine the localization of single molecules of RNA polymerase II in mammalian nuclei, they showed that polymerases are mostly homogenously distributed throughout the nucleus, hence, arguing against a static model of clustering in transcription factories.

In 2008, he joined the Laboratory of Ueli Schibler at the Department of Molecular Biology at the University of Geneva for a postdoctoral training. Here, he developed a new technology allowing ultra-sensitive monitoring of transcriptional kinetics in single living cells by luminescence microscopy. It allowed to demonstrate that mammalian genes are transcribed during short time windows, called transcriptional bursts, which have widely different kinetics properties for different genes. The key finding was that most mammalian genes have to transit through a refractory period when they are inactive before they can be activated again. Suter and colleges employed this approach to disentangle the effect of physiological stimuli on different bursting parameters. They also demonstrated the dynamic interactions of circadian transcription factors and their regulation by the proteasome.

Suter studied medicine at the University of Geneva and obtained his medical diploma in 2004. He graduated in 2007 with a PhD on embryonic stem cell differentiation and transgenesis, and in 2008, he received his Doctor of Medicine (MD) also from the University of Geneva.

David Suter (born 1978 in Switzerland) is a Swiss physician and molecular and cell biologist. His research focuses on quantitative approaches to study gene expression and developmental cell fate decisions. He is currently a professor at EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne), where he heads the Suter Lab at the Institute of Bioengineering of the School of Life Sciences.