Biography

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Alexei Savchenko completed his undergraduate studies in Molecular Biology at the Yerevan State University (Armenia) and a Ph.D. thesis in Molecular Microbiology at the Université de Nantes (France).  After postdoctoral training in Protein Biochemistry at Michigan State University (USA), Alexei became one of the founding members of the structural genomics group at the University of Toronto.  There he focused on development of streamlined methodologies for the large-scale structural and functional characterization of structurally non-annotated protein families in microbial genomes. Since then Dr. Savchenko’s group has contributed to the determination of over 500 de novo protein structures by X-ray crystallography and to the functional annotation of a large number of bacterial virulence factors, essential gene products, antibiotic resistance proteins and novel microbial enzymes of biotechnological relevance.

Dr. Savchenko remains a key player in international structural genomics effort. His group participates in two National Institutes of Health (NIH, US) funded multicenter structural genomics consortiums – Midwest Centre for Structural Genomics (www.mcsg.anl.gov) and Center for Structural Genomics of Infectious Diseases (www.csgid.org), where it primarily contributes to structural and functional characterization of proteins involved in bacterial pathogenesis. Dr. Savchenko’s research is also funded by Ontario Research Fund, CHRP, NSERC and Genome Canada.

Currently Dr. Savchenko’s research projects involves structure/function studies of proteins secreted by pathogenic bacteria inside their eukaryotic hosts using type 3 or 4 secretions systems, bacterial enzymes involved in resistance to antibiotics and fungal and bacterial enzymes involved in degradation of carbohydrate biomass.

Dr. Savchenko holds Research Associate Professor position at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry and adjunct Assistant Professor position at Banting and Best Department of Medical Research (BBDMR). Dr. Savchenko is one of the founding members of Biozone Center for Applied Bioengineering Research at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering.

 

e-mail: alexei.savchenko@utoronto.ca

phone: 416-978-3925