Jan Keiten-Schmitz was born in Freiburg, Germany. He studied Biology in Darmstadt and Heidelberg and obtained his diploma degree in 2013. In his diploma thesis he studied the TOM complex of Leishmania tarentolae. In September 2013 he started his PhD in the lab of Stefan Müller at the IBCII. Jan is studying the SUMO-targeted E3 ubiquitin-protein ligases (STUbLs) RNF4 and RNF111.