Maria Klimecka, Ph.D.

Maria is a protein biochemistry and structural biology expert with 18 structure deposits in PDB and EMDB. Maria joined our lab in 2017 to assist the LIDER project in the R&D work regarding the antiviral IFIT proteins. Next, she moved on to an assistant professor (adiunkt) position and became the main investigator in the FIRST TEAM project (2019-2022) on the development of bacterial degraders, in which Maria focused on structural studies of degraders with bacterial proteases. Since 2022, Maria works as a senior researcher in our OPUS project on the structural characterization of IFIT complexes.

In 2025, Maria has launched a new research chapter by leading the NCN-funded part of our JPI AMR project "FunHitDisco". In an international consortium (SE/PL/NL/IT), we will search for new antifungal drugs to help drug discovery for infectious diseases.

Scientific Experience

Dr Maria Klimecka graduated from Medical University in Warsaw where she acquired comprehensive knowledge about chemistry, biology and pharmacology. She has learnt various molecular biology techniques first during preparation of her Master Thesis in Plant Biochemistry Department at Biochemistry and Biophysics Institute (IBB) in Warsaw and later during her PhD studies at the same institution. She obtained PhD degree in 2006 and her dissertation was devoted to calcium dependent protein kinase ZmCPK11 from maize.

In May 2008 she started a postdoc in Wladek Minor’s lab at the University of Virginia, Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics (US). During her work concerning aminoglycoside N-acetyltransferase from B. anthracis she have learnt crystallization methods, data collection, crystal structure solving methods of proteins and protein complexes with various small molecules. After returning to Poland she started to work as assistant in Laboratory Prof. Danuta Antosiewicz, Institute of Plant Experimental Biology, Department of Anatomy and Cytology of Plants, Faculty of Biology, at Warsaw University where she was studying metal homeostasis in plants. Recently, she was the main investigator in the NCBiR Polish-Norwegian project "Toward structural characterization of novel mechanism of inhibition of SnRK2s activity by calcium sensor (SCS) in plants", at Laboratory of Phosphorylation of Proteins, Department of Plant Biochemistry IBB PAS, Warsaw.

Scientific interests

• Mechanisms of stress signal transduction in plant cell;
• Protein-protein interactions;
• Structure-function relationship.

Hobbies

• curling,
• science fiction books and films,
• first aid,
• Civilization 4.