Konstantin Severinov
Center for Molecular and Cellular Biology
Konstantin is a professor at the Molecular Biology and Biochemistry department at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, and a head of laboratory at the Waksman Institute for Microbiology. He also heads a Laboratory of genetic regulation of prokaryotic mobile genetic elements at the Institute of Molecular Genetics at the Russian Academy of Sciences and a Laboratory of molecular genetics of microorganisms at the Institute of Gene Biology at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
He is a member of the Science and Technology Council of the Russian Nanotechnology corporation and a consultant for 7 biotech companies and several Russian government agencies. He has produced over 200 peer-reviewed publications and 6 patents.
Konstantin works on genetic, biochemical, and structural analyses of transcription mechanism and regulation in bacteria. He also studies the regulation of macromolecular synthesis during the process of bacteriophage infection and various molecular interactions between bacteriophages and their host bacteria. Another main direction of his research involves analysis of antibacterial peptides called microcins: their structures, mechanisms of function, evolution, and the use as new antibiotics.
- Bacterial viruses, bacteriophages, are most abundant and diverse live objects on our planet. They evolved a trove of mechanisms to destroy bacteria. Bacteriophages can also be used directly as antibacterial agents. We identify new bacteriophages from environment, determine their genomic sequences and identify molecular mechanisms that they use to effectively infect bacterial hosts. The knowledge gained produces targets for future development of antibacterial drugs.
- Adaptive bacterial immunity CRISPR-Cas systems have revolutionized the field of genomic editing and opened up possibilities for genomic medicine. In collaboration with laboratories from NIH and MIT we predict and functionally characterize new CRISPR-Cas systems that may have advantages over existing ones in practical applications. We also study the biological role of various CRISPR-Cas systems, trying to understand how they shape the interactions of bacteria with mobile genetic elements such as bacteriophages and impact bacterial ecology and evolution. To this end, we a combination of advanced biochemical, genetic, biophysical and bioinformatics methods.
- Antibiotic resistance becomes a global healthcare problem that may undermine the humankind ability to control bacterial diseases. We use bioinformatics to search for new antibiotics by mining available genomic and metagenomic data and we experimentally validate predicted antibiotic biosynthesis clusters and characterise new antibiotics they encode. We determine the structures of validated compounds, mechanisms of their biosynthesis and action on sensitive cells. The knowledge gained is used to create semisynthetic bioactive compounds that can be developed for practical use in medicine and agriculture.
- Skoltech Professor of the year (2018)
- Russian Web of Science Award (2017)
- Best Research Supervisor, Skoltech award (2017)
- Russian Scopus Award (2015)
- Fulbright Senior Scholar (2010)
- Fellow of American Academy of Microbiology (2009)
- The Russian Science Support Foundation Prize (2008, 2009)
- Doctor of Sciences, Russian Academy of Sciences, cum laude, (2006)
- 10th Johnson & Johnson Discovery Award (1997)
- The Burroughs Welcome Fund Career Award in Biomedical Sciences (1996-2002)
1. “How can we change availability of the modern medicine genomic analysis?”, 17/11/2014
2. “Gene transcription”, 05/11/2014
3. “Protein folding”, 17/10/2014
4. “Genetic variations in bacteria”, 14/10/2014
5. Talk about the principles of sugar substitutes, experiments with laboratory mice and human microbiota, 13/10/2014
6. “Transfer of the biological signals”, 09/10/2014
7. “How does the mammal’s intestinal microflora protection mechanism works?”, 03/10/2014
8. “Macromolecules interactions”, 01/09/2014
9. Talk about the problems of biology teaching at school, 20/08/2014
10. “Systems biology and antibiotics crisis”, 04/07/2014
11. “Science sexism”, 04/06/2014
12. “Structural and functional regulation features of the bacterial transcription”, 17/05/2014
13. “How does the DNA with synthetic nucleotides has been built into a living cell?”, 13/05/2014
14. Talk about the scientific infrastructure, relationship between viruses and bacteria, and the main motivation of scientists, 30/04/2014
15. “Why do we need bioinformatics?”, 23/12/2013
16. “Genetic noise”, 26/11/2013
17. “Coevolution of humans and bacteria”, 15/11/2013
18. “Synthetic microbiology” 06/11/2013
19. “Gene therapy”, 03/09/2013
20. Talk about the photosynthesis process, oxidant problems, oxygen storage and transport proteins, 06/07/2013
21. Talk about the future of RAS, 02/07/2013
22. “Recommendations: 5 books about genetics”, 29/06/2013
23. “Microbiota of the human”, 08/05/2013
24. “Mitochondrial Eve”, 24/04/2013
25. Talk about the hemoglobin, 04/03/2014
ФИО: Северинов Константин Викторович
Занимаемая должность (должности): Директор ЦНИО
Преподаваемые дисциплины: Лабораторный курс “Базовые методы в молекулярной биологии”
Ученая степень: Доктор биологических наук, 2007; Кандидат биологических наук, 1993 Институт молекулярной генетики РАН Москва
Ученое звание (при наличии): Профессор по специальности “Молекулярная генетика”
Наименование направления подготовки и/или специальности: Биохимия
Данные о повышении квалификации и/или профессиональной переподготовке (при наличии): нет
Общий стаж работы: 25 лет
Стаж работы по специальности: 25 лет