Maya Topf - group leader

Short Academic Biography 

Maya Topf is a W3 Professor jointly appointed by the Leibniz Institute of Virology (LIV) and the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE). She leads the department of Integrative Virology at the Centre for Structural Systems Biology (CSSB) in Hamburg. Before assuming her current position, she served as a Professor of Structural and Computational Biology at the Institute of Structural and Molecular Biology (Birkbeck/UCL), University of London. Her postdoctoral research was conducted at the University of California, San Francisco, and the Australian National University.

The scientific focus of her group lies in integrative modeling methods, which aim to elucidate the structures of multimeric complexes by integrating data from various resolutions. Her work also encompasses cryo-EM modeling, where she has contributed to the development of fitting and refinement techniques, as well as assessment metrics utilized in community challenges (e.g., CASP) and widely adopted software tools such as CCP-EM and ChimeraX. Prof. Topf holds a D.Phil in Chemistry from the University of Oxford.​

​

​​

• 2020 - W3 (full) Professor, CSSB, Leibniz Institute of Virology and UKE, Hamburg

• 2016 - Professor of Structural and Computation Biology, ISMB & Birkbeck, University of London

• 2013 - Reader (Associate Professor), ISMB & Birkbeck, University of London

• 2012 - Lecturer (Assistant Professor), ISMB & Birkbeck, University of London

• 2006 - MRC Career Development Fellow: ISMB and Birkbeck, London

• 2003 - Post-doctoral research: University of California San Francisco  (UCSF, Andrej Sali lab)

• 2002 - D.Phil: University of Oxford, UK​

​

Research Interests & Current Project

• 3D electron microscopy image analysis;

• Crosslinking Mass Spectrometry;

• Moedlling structures of macromolecular assemblies by data integration;

• Viral-viral and viral-host protein-protein interaction networks;

• Ligand docking;

• Herpesviruses, arenaviruses;

• Pore-forming proteins