prof. Ing. Bohdan Schneider, CSc., DSc
Bohdan Schneider works at the Institute of Biotechnology CAS, where he focuses on protein engineering and on the study of the structure and dynamics of nucleic acids. Analysis of the structural variability of the backbone of both types of nucleic acids, DNA and RNA, has led to the determination of the local structural families of these molecules. In collaboration with colleagues he uses the knowledge of the structural behavior of nucleic acids to develop new computational methods for interpreting data from crystallographic, NMR and other biophysical measurements. He actively participated in the development of basic structural databases of biomolecules – Protein Databank and Nucleic Acid Database.
Citation report:
- Number of articles (according to WoS): 57
- Number of citations (according to WoS): over 3000
- H-Index: 21
- Number of patents: 0
Bohdan Schneider (1957) contributed to structural biology at areas of bioinformatics, biophysics, and crystallography. He studies structure and dynamics of nucleic acids and their recognition by proteins. His main contribution lies in bioinformatic analysis of structures of DNA [Schneider et al. Nucleic Acids Res. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkt1273] and RNA [Schneider et al. Nucleic Acids Res. 32, 1666 (2004)] and in work on DNA solvation [e.g. Schneider & Berman Biophys. J. 69, 2661 (1995)]. In these studies, he has devised and successfully applied novel powerful non-parametric algorithm of filtration of noisy three-dimensional data that allows their structural interpretation.
Important is his participation at infrastructure projects. Bohdan Schneider took part in creation of the Nucleic Acid Database [NDB, Berman et al. Biophys. J. 63, 751 (1992)] and was responsible for NDB operations in years 1998-2000. As a long time collaborator of the Protein Databank [PDB, Berman et al. Acta Cryst. D 58, 889 (2002)] he participated on the development of the web-based deposition system that is used by the PDB [Burkhardt et al. PLOS Comput. Biol. 2, 1186 (2006)]. Active involvement in important infrastructure projects of considerable complexity, PDB and NDB, demonstrate his experience with large international teams.
His thorough knowledge about structural biology is corroborated by co-authorship of ten chapters in books that summarize structural behavior of nucleic acids [Schneider & Berman: Basics of Nucleic Acid Structure, in Computational studies of RNA and DNA, Springer (2006) and Neidle et al.: Fundamentals of DNA and RNA structure, in Structural Bioinformatics, Wiley (2009)], describe infrastructure projects [Schneider et al: NDB, in Structural Bioinformatics, Wiley (2009)], and discuss solvation of DNA.
He has Master degree in physical chemistry, defended Ph.D thesis by work on structure-function relationships of antidepressants in 1989, and in 2010 received title DSc from the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic for his work on Nucleic structure and dynamics.
Scientific program ―Structural biology and protein engineering‖ of the center BIOCEV will benefit from Bohdan Schneider’s expertise of bioinformatics, biophysics, and crystallography and his experience with day-to-day administration and supervision of international projects.