Human Genetics & Embryology

Iraida Sharina

Iraida Sharina
University of Texas Medical School, UT Health Science Center, USA

Biography

Iraida G. Sharina, PhD is an Assistant Professor at University of Texas Medical School at Houston, Department of Internal Medicine, Cardiology Division. After obtaining her PhD in Molecular Biology from the Russian Academy of Science, she had a postdoctoral training at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York under the supervision of Dr. David I. Goldman, a leading investigator in the area of methotrexate MTX resistance in leukemia. She did an extensive study on structure function relationship of Reduced Folate Carrier, a major determinant of the cancer resistance to MTX. Following her interest in Nitric Oxide NO biology she moved to UT-Health Science Center in Houston, to join the laboratory of Dr. Ferid Murad, a Nobel Prize winner and major leader in NO field of research.

Research Interest

Dr. Sharina research program is focusing on the studies of diverse genetic processes that regulate the expression and function of major Nitric Oxide (NO) receptor soluble guanylyl cyclase (sGC). NO is a crucially important signaling molecule in physiology of diverse organisms. NO initiate a number of signaling cascades, of which arguably the most significant is the activation of sGC which generates the ubiquitous secondary messenger cGMP. sGC is the only known NO-inducible guanylyl cyclase and provides a unique link transducing increases in NO concentrations to activation of various downstream effector enzymes such as cGMP-binding protein kinases, phosphodiesterases and cyclic nucleotide gated ion channels.