Katja Brose facts for kids

Katja Brose is an American neuroscientist. This means she is a scientist who studies the brain and the nervous system. She works at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), where she helps lead projects focused on neurodegenerative diseases. These are diseases that affect the brain and nerves, like Alzheimer's disease or Parkinson's disease.

Her Journey in Science

Katja Brose began her science journey by studying at Brown University. In 1990, she earned two degrees: one in Biology and another in European history. While at Brown, she also learned about Evolutionary biology and Ecology, which is the study of how living things interact with their environment.

After college, she worked for about five years as a technician in a molecular biology lab at MIT. This job helped her gain hands-on experience in scientific research.

Becoming a Doctor of Science

From 1994 to 2000, Katja Brose was a student at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She was working towards her PhD, which is a high-level degree that shows someone is an expert in their field. Her research focused on how axons find their way in a developing spinal cord. Axons are like tiny wires that send messages in the nervous system. She studied how these "wires" know where to go as a body grows.

In 2000, she earned her PhD in Biochemistry, which is the study of the chemical processes happening in living things.

Working at Neuron Journal

Towards the end of her studies, Katja Brose applied for a job at Neuron, a well-known scientific journal. She was hired and became part of the editorial team at Cell Press. For 17 years, she helped decide which new scientific discoveries would be published in Neuron. From 2004 to 2017, she was the Editor-in-Chief, meaning she was in charge of the entire journal.

Discovering How Nerves Connect

For her PhD research, Katja Brose worked with Dr. Marc Tessier-Lavigne. They studied how axons, the long parts of nerve cells, find their correct paths to connect with other cells. This process is called "axon guidance."

Working with another lab at UC-Berkeley, her research helped discover two important molecules: Robo and Slit. They found that Robo is a "receptor" (like a receiver) and Slit is a "ligand" (like a signal). Together, they act as a new family of "axon guidance molecules." This means they help direct axons to grow in the right direction, which is super important for the nervous system to form correctly.