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Biography

Dr. Victor Solodushko, Associate Professor, received his Master of Science and Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Kiev State University, Kiev, Ukraine, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in cell biology and neuroscience at the Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine.

Research

Although current therapies for chronic pulmonary hypertension have improved patient survival, the long-term outcome from this disease remains unfavorable. Recently researchers have focused on endothelial progenitor cells as a potential treatment for this disease. We propose that inducible pluripotent stem cells, obtained by reprogramming the host’s own easily accessible somatic cells, are a promising and novel source of endothelial progenitor cells that can be used for the treatment of pulmonary hypertension. Dr. Solodushko designs removable transposon-viral hybrid vectors to generate endothelial progenitor cells from somatic cells and test their therapeutic potential in animals and humans. Dr. Solodushko is also working on developing of new transposon-based vectors, alternative approach to viral and naked plasmid delivery of nucleic acids.

Publications

Solodushko V, Fouty B. Terminal hairpins improve protein expression in IRES-initiated mRNA in the absence of a cap and polyadenylated tail. Gene Ther. 2023 Aug;30(7-8):620-627. doi: 10.1038/s41434-023-00391-4. Epub 2023 Feb 24. PMID: 36828937; PMCID: PMC9951143.

Rayner JO, Kim JH, Roberts RW, Wood RR, Fouty B, Solodushko V. Evaluation of DNA-Launched Virus-Like Particle Vaccines in an Immune Competent Mouse Model of Chikungunya Virus Infection. Vaccines (Basel). 2021 Apr 2;9(4):345. doi: 10.3390/vaccines9040345. PMID: 33918409; PMCID: PMC8067036.

Solodushko V, Bitko V, Barrington R, Fouty B. A DNA Vaccine in Which the RSV-F Ectodomain Is Covalently Linked to the Burkholderia pseudomallei Antigens TssM and Hcp1 Augments the Humoral and Cytotoxic Response in Mice. Front Immunol. 2019 Oct 11;10:2411. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2019.02411. PMID: 31681300; PMCID: PMC6797551.

Troyanovsky B, Bitko V, Pastukh V, Fouty B, Solodushko V. The Functionality of Minimal PiggyBac Transposons in Mammalian Cells. Mol Ther Nucleic Acids. 2016 Oct 4;5(10):e369. doi: 10.1038/mtna.2016.76. PMID: 27701401; PMCID: PMC5095681.

Troyanovsky B, Bitko V, Fouty B, Solodushko V. Simple viral/minimal piggyBac hybrid vectors for stable production of self-inactivating gamma-retroviruses. BMC Res Notes. 2015 Aug 27;8:379. doi: 10.1186/s13104-015-1354-y. PMID: 26306622; PMCID: PMC4549879.