Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Cancer Research Building-2, Room 5M05,
1550 Orleans Street, Baltimore, MD 21231, USA
 | eratovi1@jhmi.edu |
I was born in Leningrad, Soviet Union, in 1951 and have received my B.Sc. in Biology and M.Sc. in Biochemistry from the Faculty of Biological Sciences at the Leningrad State University in 1973. After receiving my Ph.D. Degree in Molecular Biology and Cancer Biology from the Petrov Cancer Research Institute in 1979, I was continuing my research as a research scientist there. Then in 1983 I was accepted as a senior research scientist into a newly organized Department of Genetic Engineering at the Institute of Cytology, Leningrad, USSR. In 1989, I have been awarded a D.Sc. Degree in Molecular and Cell Biology.
In 1990, I immigrated to Israel and started working as a Senior Scientist/Assistant Professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel, where I studied the interferon type I receptor signaling at the Department of Molecular Virology under the supervision of Prof. Michel Revel, the leader in cytokine signaling. During my tenure at Weizmann, I was awarded a British Council Award to study in ICI/Zeneca Pharmaceuticals (Alderley Park, UK) allowing me to extend my expertise in yeast genetic engineering.
In 1994, I was invited to join the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHMI, Baltimore, Maryland, USA), as an Associate Professor of Pathology, where I have developed a strong long-lasting interest in protein-protein interaction studies in cardiovascular and cancer diseases. This approach helped me to discover a novel midkine-dependent signaling pathway, the regulatory proteins affecting NOS2 activity/dimerization/ degradation, and finally, I focused on the p63 transcriptional factor implicated in head and neck cancer and ectodermal dysplasia. In 2000, I was promoted to the rank of the Professor of Dermatology/Pathology/ Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. Since then my laboratory was able to discover a molecular mechanism underlying ectodermal dysplasia via p63-dependent regulation of RNA splicing for fibroblast growth factor receptor 2, which functions as a key regulator of the epithelial-mesenchymal transition. Since 2004, I have also become an Associate Director of Head and Neck Cancer Research Division at the Johns Hopkins. In the same year I have become a member of the Graduate Training Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at JHMI. In 2008, I have joined the Wilmer Glia Research Laboratory Collaborative Network and Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. Recently, I have become a Medical Research Council Member at the JHMI. Since 2013, I have become an Adjunct Professor at the George Washington University (GWIN, SEAS), Washington-DC, USA.
To the present date, my collaborative efforts along with Drs. David Sidransky and Barry Trink (the researchers who first discovered p53 homologue p63) led to more than 50 international publications, reviews, book chapters and patents on p63 function alone.
My name was included in the books "2000 Outstanding Scientists of the 21st Century", "Great Minds of the 21st Century" and "Who is Who in Medicine" (since 2005). I am a Member of the New York Academy of Sciences, International Society on Interferon and Cytokine Research, American Society for Cell Biology, American Association for Cancer Research, International Society for Cell Biology, Society for Investigative Dermatology, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, International Society for Stem Cell Research. I am a member of the World Wildlife Fund, World Oceanography Institute, Executive Advlsory Board, Biotech/Medical Board, and Sustainability Board of Lifeboat Foundation, and "Task Force: Getting to know Cancer. Halifax Project". In 2014-2015, I was awarded a Distinguished Visiting Professorship by an Ecuador Prometeo Foundation and served in the Department of Human Genetics at the La Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (UTPL), Loja, Ecuador.
