Seeking new techniques to track
protein breakdown

Jana Zecha has developed techniques that will help researchers learn how protein modifications can affect their stability.Cells are protein factories, constantly making new proteins and breaking down damaged or unnecessary ones. Cells must regulate these processes tightly for thousands of proteins to support cellular function, and Jana Zecha has developed a new technique to monitor this protein turnover.

During her early biology courses in Burghausen, a small town in Bavaria, Zecha became curious about how single molecules work together to produce a functioning organism. She earned a bachelor’s degree at the Technical University of Munich, completing a thesis project on gene expression in gestational diabetes. She became interested in technologies that scientists could harness to investigate the molecular bases of disease.

Zecha remained in Munich to work in Bernhard Küster’s group, earning a master’s degree and then beginning her Ph.D. research, studying how protein modifications determine their breakdown rates at a cell-wide level. Her project built on earlier work in the Küster lab that suggested established methods had difficulty tracking modified proteins.

Using the classical approaches for the measurement of cellular protein turnover,” Zecha said, “many important aspects of cell biology have so far been overlooked or remained ‘invisible.’”

After developing new techniques and data analysis approaches, she could track breakdown and production of thousands of modified proteins over time. Her work has laid the foundation for future investigations into how protein modifications can affect their stability.

Zecha enjoys teaching young scientists. She has mentored undergraduate researchers in the Küster lab and has taught courses in Munich and Taiwan.

“Although teaching is, of course, always lots of work,” she said, “for me it is also great fun and a pleasure to pass on my enthusiasm for science and guide and help students to recognize and develop their potential.”

Zecha is in the final stage of her Ph.D. thesis work in Bernhard Küster’s lab.