Tatyana received her M.S. in Biochemistry from Moscow State University, Moscow, USSR. She pursued graduate studies at the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences Cancer Research Center, Moscow, USSR in the laboratory of Andrei Gudkov. Her doctoral thesis describes studies on evolution of endogenous retroviruses in mammalian genome. She then joined Susan Ross’ laboratory at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Illinois at Chicago and later moved with the lab to University of Pennsylvania, Department of Microbiology. Her Cancer Research Institute postdoctoral fellowship supported her research focused on mechanisms of Mouse Mammary Tumor Virus and host interactions. She joined The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, ME in 1997 where she studied genetics of resistance to viral infection and in 2005, she re-located her laboratory to the Department of Microbiology at the University of Chicago.

 

Tatyana’s laboratory uses different retroviruses to study distinct aspects of retrovirus-host interactions, including the anti-virus immune response and the genetics of resistance to retroviral infection and to virally induced tumors. Elucidation of the mechanism of retroviral pathogenesis is of fundamental importance, as it will ultimately lead to increased knowledge about the anti-virus immune response in general and variations in susceptibility to viral infections in humans.