Kamena Kostova’s journey began in a tiny Bulgarian village, where a deep fascination with nature first sparked her scientific curiosity. Her wonderment and willingness to embrace the unknown would take her across continents to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and ultimately to UCSF’s Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program, where she discovered the intricate world of cellular machinery that would become her life’s work.
The Unsung Hero of Cellular Life
For Kostova, the ribosome is nothing short of miraculous. “The ribosome is the unsung hero of the body,” she passionately explains. “There is no life without protein synthesis, so there’s no life without ribosomes.” As a principal investigator at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City, Mo., she has dedicated her career to unraveling the complex dynamics of these microscopic protein factories that number about 3 million per cell.
Unraveling Molecular Mysteries
Her groundbreaking research reveals that ribosomes are surprisingly vulnerable to damage. This has implications for diseases such as cancer and ribosomopathies, which can cause nerve damage, intellectual abnormalities, and intellectual disabilities. “The goal of my lab is to understand how cells cope with defective ribosomes, how they’re being detected and cleared, and how failure to do so contributes to disease,” Kostova says. “I’ve built a highly collaborative team. We always think about the long-term benefits and how our science can impact patient outcomes.”
Cultivating Curiosity
Her lab’s mantra – “Dare to dream” – encapsulates her approach. “I tell my trainees that if you stay where you’re comfortable and never challenge yourself, it’s not as fun as it could be,” she says. “We really need to push the science forward and ask big, new biological questions. That’s how discoveries are made. New ideas come from curiosity.”
