Tonya Zeczycki, PhD
Associate Professor & Director, BSOM’s Mass Spectrometry Core Facilities
Brody 3N-86A Office; 3N-86 Lab
East Carolina University Brody School of Medicine
Greenville, NC 27834
Phone: 252-744-5609
E-mail: zeczyckit@ecu.edu
Education
- B.S. (Chemistry and Biology), Wisconsin Lutheran College, 2002
- Ph.D. (Inorganic Chemistry), Marquette University, 2007
- Post-doctorate, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Research Interests
- Intrinsically disordered proteins, protein folding, allostery, protein motions, biophysical chemistry, structural proteomics, enzymology
- Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, Alzheimer related dementias, Neurodegenerative disease, Neuroimmunology
The relationship between neurodegenerative disease pathologies and proteins containing intrinsically disordered regions or that are fully disordered is well-established. Why these proteins go rogue — transforming from proteins performing important physiological tasks to ones associated with disease pathologies – remains an unresolved question. To answer this question, our research focuses on examining the structural and mechanistic underpinnings of basic neurodegenerative disease biology.
Using a combination of biophysical and kinetic techniques, mass spectrometry, and cellular assays, we interrogate the structure, function, and protein motions of intrinsically disordered proteins associated with disease pathologies and probe the causes of disease onset and progression. This information is both important to advancing our understanding of the basic biology of neurodegenerative diseases and essential to facilitating new avenues of therapeutic development for these devastating, progressive diseases.
If you would like more information about our research, potential collaborations, or doing undergraduate or graduate research in our lab, please contact Dr. Zeczycki or Research Scientist, Whitney Bond (bondw19@ecu.edu).
Selected Publications
To see the most recent publications from the Zeczycki lab, please visit our Google Scholar Page or see ORCID: 0000-0002-5216-1960.