Professor Mikhail A. Nikiforov

Mikhail A. Nikiforov, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Oncology, Department of Cell Stress Biology, Roswell Park Cancer Institute.
 
Misha’s research program is focused on several aspects of molecular biology and drug resistance of melanoma and several blood malignancies including:

• Elucidation of molecular mechanisms underlying oncogene-dependent senescence in normal human melanocytes and melanoma cells
• Acquisition of invasive phenotypes by melanoma cells
• The role of Krüppel-like transcription factors in the regulation of therapeutic outcomes in multiple myeloma, acute promyelocytic leukemia, and acute myeloid leukemia

In parallel, his lab is actively pursuing the development of a novel class of small molecule inhibitors of C-MYC, an oncogenic transcription factor that is overexpressed in more than 80% of human cancers. His research is funded by the National Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society, and by private biomedical companies.
 
Misha’s papers include Anti-oncogenic role of the endoplasmic reticulum differentially activated by mutations in the MAPK pathway, TRRAP-Dependent and TRRAP-Independent Transcriptional Activation by Myc Family Oncoproteins, Tumor cell-selective regulation of NOXA by c-MYC in response to proteasome inhibition, A Functional Screen for Myc-Responsive Genes Reveals Serine Hydroxymethyltransferase, a Major Source of the One-Carbon Unit for Cell Metabolism, Excision of micronuclear-specific DNA requires parental expression of Pdd2p andoccursindependentlyfromDNA replication in Tetrahymena thermophila, and The Mad and Myc Basic Domains Are Functionally Equivalent.
 
Misha earned his B.S./M.S. in Biochemistry at Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia in 1992. He earned his Ph.D. in Genetics at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1997. He was Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Rochester, Department of Biology from 1997 to 2000. He was Research Associate at the Princeton University, Department of Molecular Biology from 2000 to 2004.