Sabrina Büttner. Photo: private.

How it all started

Sabrina Büttner was born in Mutlangen in Germany and when she started her university studies she chose to study biochemistry in Tübingen. Not because she was particularly interested in biochemistry, or science at all; a future as an artist probably attracted more. Nor did she choose biochemistry because it was an easy subject. On the contrary - Tübingen's education in biochemistry was considered difficult and Sabrina's former chemistry teacher was skeptical. But that's exactly why Sabrina wanted to study biochemistry: to see if she could do it!

It turned out that Sabrina had made the right choice. Already when she started her master's project, she entered the field of research that she has continued with ever since: how cells age and die. She became so interested that when her supervisor got a professorship in Graz, Austria and offered her to start postgraduate education there, she did not hesitate to follow.

Many years in Graz

After her dissertation in 2007, Sabrina remained in Graz. She enjoyed the city, the project went well, she got her own grants and she also started a family. But the proximity to the former supervisor wasn't doing her a favour, and when she lost a large research grant because she had not shown sufficient scientific independence, she understood that it was time to leave.

This led to her getting a job at Stockholm University in 2015, the family moved here and now Sabrina is a senior lecturer at MBW. She thinks she will stay here, despite the winter darkness and the northern climate.

Aging yeast cells

Because both a postdoc and two doctoral students chose to move to Stockholm, Sabrina was able to get started with the research here relatively quickly. The focus was initially on programmed cell death (apoptosis) but has over time shifted to cell aging. Yeast is primarily used as a model organism. At the cellular level, we are all quite similar, so what you learn about the aging of yeast cells often also applies to multicellular organisms, including ourselves.

A key aspect that the group is studying is how the cell's organelles interact with each other. This can take place both through signal transmission and through direct physical contact between the membranes of the organelles. Another aspect is how aging is affected by how much nutrients the cell has access to and how the nutrients are composed. The cell's ability to control the quality of its own proteins also deteriorates during aging and the mechanisms behind this are studied in a national consortium where Sabrina's group is included.

Favorite course

Sabrina is responsible for the course for Molecular Cell Biology 15 credits, a course that is common to the two master's programs Microbiology and Molecular Life Sciences. Because the course is compulsory and is first in the education, the idea is that it should give all students a good foundation for subsequent courses. It is of course a challenge when the students have very varied theoretical and practical prior knowledge. The course therefore begins with two optional elements where you go through basic concepts and give an introduction to the lab work.

In other respects, the course is structured with lectures and project work that are presented on posters during a course symposium. Sabrina is clearly enthusiastic when she talks about the course and says that it is so rewarding to participate in it, the student group is relatively small and you get to know the students well.

Empty when the doctoral students are finished

Sure, Sabrina mostly has full workdays, but some periods are worse than others. This was the case last year (2021) when Sabrina had as many as four doctoral students defending their dissertations during the period June-November. She says that she had underestimated how much time it took with all the manuscripts that would be completed and that she did not really realize the significance of the actual dissertation act in Sweden. In the future, she will not have more than two doctoral students at the same time. In any case, everything went well and the four students have now moved on - to the supervisor's great loss, because they leave a big void behind.

Other interests

Sabrina dedicates her weekends to the family as much as possible. It actually happens that she does not open her computer all weekend. Instead, there will be bike rides and other activities with the children outdoors.

But what about the interest in art? There is currently no time for that, but Sabrina certainly hopes to be able to take up painting at some point in the future. For the time being, she gets to show her artistic talents when the scientific results are to be illustrated with pictures and diagrams; science is also art, she says. And sometimes you can be a little bold; one example is an imaginative cover of Trends in Biochemical Sciences from March 2010.

Why research?

In conclusion: how to attract students to study further? Why should one engage in molecular biology research? Out of curiosity, says Sabrina, every day you go to the lab, there may be something new to discover. She sees the whole of science as a gigantic puzzle that everyone can contribute to. - You may not think that your little piece is particularly remarkable, but every single piece is important for the overall picture.

Yeast cells where the network of mitochondria is stained. Photo: Carlotta Peselj.