Professor Vadym Kavsan

Professor
Vadym Kavsan

Birth date: June 17, 1939. Education: MD, National medical University (Kiev, 1964). Degrees: Philosophy Doctor (1969), PhD; Doctor of Sciences (1985), D.Sci. (molecular biology). Title: Professor (1991), Correspondent Member of National academy of sciences of Ukraine (1995).

Main place of work: Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics of NASU. Position: Head of Department.

Rewards: USSR State Prize of Science and Technology (1979); "For Labour Prowess medal" ("Za Trudovuyu Doblest", 1981); UICC Award (1994); Member of Human Genome Organisation (HUGO); Member of European Association of Cancer Research (EACR); Member of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Main scientific interests: organisation and structure of eukaryotic genes; oncogenetics; molecular neuroscience.

Professor Kavsan is one of the founders of molecular biology and biotechnology in the former USSR. He is an author of several fundamental advances in the field of molecular biology, genetic engineering and oncovirology.

Here are the most important ones:

1st synthesis of eucaryotic gene on the former USSR territory;

the ambiguity of transcription boundaries (together with G.P.Georgiev) of eukaryotic genes;

investigation and synthesis of globine transcriptones;

determination of insulin superfamily genes structure;

characterization of regulatory regions of piscine insulin genes and creation of convenient model for studying of these genes in higher organisms;

determination of the organization and structure of the oncogenes and genomes in retroviruses;

determination of retroviruses adaptation mechanisms to non-specific hosts.

At the moment, the main scientific direction of Dr. Kavsan and his scientific team is a determination of genes invoved to the initiation and progression of the glial human brain tumours. Several genes have been found which up- or down-regulated in the glial tumours by means of expression genetics methods and the novel approaches using virtual data bases. It has been shown the up-regulation of HC gp-39 gene encoded cartilage glycoprotein with unknown function, only on the last most malignant stages of glial tumours progression. These results have the essential importance for the development of auxiliary methods of tumour diagnostics. The inactivation of the potential suppressor gene TSC-22 have detected. The increase of the all mitochondrial genes expression has been established in human glioblastoma, the most malignant glial tumour, as compared to the normal brain. It may be caused by the reduction of transcriptional activity of mitochondrial genome, or to be as consequence of DNA mutations enhancement.

Publications: 126 articles in the peered journals, 197 published theses of international conferences, author's certificates and deposited nucleotide sequences.

Work phone: +380 44 5263498. Home phone: +380 44 2343727. Fax: +380 44 5260759. E-mail: kavsan@imbg.org.ua.

List of the most essential publications you can see here.