Head of Department of Cell Biology
Leader, yeast cell biology group.
Professor at the Institute for Molecular Biosciences, University of Oslo.

Education:

• 1973. Graduated in biophysics from the Norwegian Technical University.
• 1980. Ph.D. in radiation biology, University of Oslo

Employments

• 1973-1983: Physicist, Department of Medical Physics, The Norwegian Radium Hospital.
• 1983-1997: Senior scientist, Department of Biophysics, Institute for Cancer Research.
• 1997- : Head of Department of Cell Biology, Institute for Cancer Research
• 2003- : Adjunct professor at the Institute of Molecular Biosciences, University of Oslo

Current Research Interests

• Control of DNA replication in prokaryotes and eukaryotes.
• DNA damage and repair.
• Checkpoint control mechanisms.
• Translation
• Noncoding RNA

Research prizes

• The Stiansen Biomedical Research prize (1998)

International Committees and Organizations

• Member of EMBO
• Member of EMBO Council 2001-2007
• Vice chair of EMBO Council 2004-2007
• Member of the editorial boards in EMBO Journal and EMBO Reports
• Membership & Publications Committee, EMBO (1996-1999)
• FEBS Council 2003-2007
• Panel chair European Research Council 2008-

National Committees and Organizations

• Member of the Norwegian Society for Science and Letters (since 2000)
• Secretary General of the Norwegian Biochemical Society (2003-2007)
• Scientific Advisory Committee for the Computational Biology Unit (Univ of Bergen) (2003-2008)
• Biomolex AS, Board member (2001-2003)
• Programme committee for "Cell and gene technology", NFR (1998-2002)
• Chairman of the board, Norsk Hydros Fund for Cancer Research (1999- )
• EMBIO (Univ of Oslo), Board member (2007-2009)

In-house activities

• Translational Research Board (Forskningsutvalget, 2002-2004).
• Steering group for construction of a new research building (2003-2009).
• Users’ group for new research building (2001-2003)
• Institutional web committee (2003-2007)
• Committee for reorganisation of the Institute (1999-2000)
• Member of Institute Council (1997-)
• Leader of Scientists Union (1981-82)
• Member of the editorial board of internal newspaper (1991-1998)
• Deputy member of the board of the Research Foundation (2000-2002)
• Board for IT and networking (1999-2002)

Teaching and Ph.D dissertations

• Sporadic lectures at Oslo and Tromsø Universities since 1980s.
• Teach at Institute of Molecular Biosciences, Univ of Oslo, since 2003.
• EMBO Practical Course on fission yeast biology, Copenhagen, 2002 and 2004.
• 16 Ph.D. dissertations, of which 7 were abroad.

Major scientific achievements

• The oxygen effect of ionising radiation is due to chemical reactions and not to enzymatic repair (Nature 1975)
• Produced the first DNA histograms of bacteria by flow cytometry (J. Bacteriol 1980).
• Initiation of DNA replication in E. coli initiates in synchrony at multiple origins (EMBO Journal 1986).
• The DnaA protein determines the initiation mass in E. coli (Cell 1989)
• DNA methylation is a major determinant of timing and synchrony of initiation of DNA replication in E. coli (Cell 1990)
• The mass at initiation in E. coli cells is not constant and varies with growth rate - in contradiction to the dogma (EMBO Journal 1994)
• SeqA is a negative regulator of DNA replication in E. coli (Cell 1994, Cell 1995, PNAS 1996)
• The mass at entry into S phase of S. pombe cells varies with growth rate (J.Cell Sci 1999)
• There is no classical G1/S checkpoint in S. pombe, but this transition is governed by a novel mechanism (PNAS 2003)
• The G1/S checkpoint is governed by the Gcn2 kinase (Genes Dev 2007)

Research grants

Received major grants from The Norwegian Cancer Society, The Norwegian Research Council (including "Miljøstøtte" and "Grunnleggende sykdomsmekanismer"), National Institutes of Health (U.S.A.) and minor grants from
The Odd Fellows Research Fund, Martin Flatners Legat, Siomon Fougner Hartmanns Familiefond and Familien Blix' fond.

Research visits/sabbaticals

• Gunnar Ahnström, Stockholm University (1975)
• Robert E. Krisch, Argonne National Laboratory (1976-77)
• Wolfgang Köhnlein, University of Münster (1982)
• Arthur Kornberg, Stanford University (1987)
• Paul Nurse, ICRF,London (1995)
• Jose Sogo (2002)

Meeting organisation
Main organiser of numerous national and international meetings, including an EMBO practical course (1986), two EMBO Conferences on DNA replication (1998 and 2008), EMBO Members Meeting (2002), the annual meeting of the Norwegian Biochemical Society (2004), a Nordic meeting on DNA replication (1990) and a Nordic network meeting on fission yeast biology (2001).

Johansen I, Boye E. (1975 Jun 26)
Radiation-induced DNA strand breaks in E. coli measured within a fraction of a second.
Nature 255(5511):741-2

Steen HB, Boye E. (1981 Feb)
Escherichia coli growth studied by dual-parameter flow cytophotometry.
J Bacteriol 145(2):1091-4 PDF format

Skarstad K, Boye E, Steen HB. (1986 Jul)
Timing of initiation of chromosome replication in individual Escherichia coli cells.
EMBO J 5(7):1711-7

Løbner-Olesen A, Skarstad K, Hansen FG, von Meyenburg K, Boye E. (1989 Jun 2)
The DnaA protein determines the initiation mass of Escherichia coli K-12.
Cell 57(5):881-9

Boye E, Løbner-Olesen A. (1990 Sep 7)
The role of dam methyltransferase in the control of DNA replication in E. coli.
Cell 62(5):981-9

Wold S, Skarstad K, Steen HB, Stokke T, Boye E. (1994 May 1)
The initiation mass for DNA replication in Escherichia coli K-12 is dependent on growth rate.
EMBO J 13(9):2097-102

Lu M, Campbell JL, Boye E, Kleckner N. (1994 May 6)
SeqA: a negative modulator of replication initiation in E. coli.
Cell 77(3):413-26

Seror SJ, Casaregola S, Vannier F, Zouari N, Dahl M, Boye E. (1994 May 15)
Amutant cysteinyl-tRNA synthetase affecting timing of chromosomalreplication initiation in B. subtilis and conferring resistance to aprotein kinase C inhibitor.
EMBO J 13(10):2472-80

Slater S, Wold S, Lu M, Boye E, Skarstad K, Kleckner N. (1995 Sep 22)
E.coli SeqA protein binds oriC in two different methyl-modulatedreactions appropriate to its roles in DNA replication initiation andorigin sequestration.
Cell 82(6):927-36

Boye E, Stokke T, Kleckner N, Skarstad K. (1996 Oct 29)
Coordinating DNA replication initiation with cell growth: differential roles for DnaA and SeqA proteins.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 93(22):12206-11 PDF format

Carlson CR, Grallert B, Stokke T, Boye E. (1999 Mar)
Regulation of the start of DNA replication in Schizosaccharomyces pombe.
J Cell Sci 112 ( Pt 6):939-46 PDF format

Boye E, Løbner-Olesen A, Skarstad K. (2000 Dec)
Limiting DNA replication to once and only once.
EMBO Rep 1(6):479-83

Synnes M, Nilssen EA, Boye E, Grallert B. (2002 Sep 15)
A novel chk1-dependent G1/M checkpoint in fission yeast.
J Cell Sci 115(Pt 18):3609-18 PDF format

Boye E, Nordström K. (2003 Aug)
Coupling the cell cycle to cell growth.
EMBO Rep 4(8):757-60 PDF format

Nilssen EA, Synnes M, Kleckner N, Grallert B, Boye E. (2003 Sep 16)
Intra-G1 arrest in response to UV irradiation in fission yeast.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 100(19):10758-63 PDF format

Tvegård T, Soltani H, Skjølberg HC, Krohn M, Nilssen EA, Kearsey SE, Grallert B, Boye E (2007)
A novel checkpoint mechanism regulating the G1/S transition
Genes Dev, 21 (6), 649-54 PDF format