Affiliation: Polish Academy of Sciences

Dr. Ulrike Topf is an assistant professor and research group leader at the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. Her research interests comprise the identification of molecular mechanisms necessary to restore protein homeostasis upon cellular stress conditions and aging utilizing yeast and nematodes as model organisms. Particularly, Dr. Topf is analysing how the protein synthesis machinery in the cytosol adapts to accommodate the demands of the cell for newly synthesized proteins under oxidative stress conditions. Her latest research suggests that oxidative modifications of ribosomal proteins might provide a means of modulating translation. Dr. Topf performed her doctoral studies in the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI) in Switzerland and completed her postdoctoral training in the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw (IIMCB) and at the University of Warsaw. Currently, Dr. Topf is expanding her research program to investigate the role of protein folding mechanisms downstream of protein synthesis to overcome cellular stress conditions that lead to translation attenuation.