Prof. Vsevolod V. Gurevich Vanderbilt University, USA

Vsevolod V. Gurevich, Ph.D., Professor of Pharmacology, Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Cornelius Vanderbilt Endowed Chair, Vanderbilt University. Research focus: structure and function of arrestins. With different collaborators we solved crystal structures of all four vertebrate arrestins, the arrestin-rhodopsin complex, and pre-activated arrestin-3 in the absence of receptor. We... read moreconstructed enhanced arrestins that bind active unphosphorylated GPCRs. We showed that enhanced mutants of visual arrestin-1 compensate for defects in rhodopsin phosphorylation in vivo. We identified key residues responsible for receptor preference of arrestins. We identified arrestin elements involved in scaffolding ASK1-MKK4/4-JNK1/2/3 cascades and constructed novel tools for manipulation of JNK signaling, including short peptides that facilitate JNK3 activation in cells. We proved that monomeric GPCRs are necessary and sufficient for GRK phosphorylation and arrestin binding. Education: BS and MS in Biochemistry from Lomonosov Moscow State University; PhD in Bioorganic Chemistry from Shemyakin Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Moscow, Russia.