Dr. Larionov received his Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology at the Institute of Experimental Medicine, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, where Dr. Solomon Neifakh supervised his graduate studies of extra-chromosomal elements in the yeast S. cerevisiae. Following a fellowship with Dr. Alexander Bayev at the Institute of Molecular Biology, Dr. Larionov was selected to set up a new laboratory for genetic engineering in the Institute of Cytology, Russian Academy of Sciences. There, he focused on the genetic determinants of mitotic chromosome transmission in yeast, and developed new molecular and genetic approaches to identify and study the genes controlling chromosome replication and segregation. In 1991, Dr. Larionov moved to the USA and joined the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), NIH, in North Carolina. He concentrated on solving two key problems plaguing the Human Genome Project: the frequent gross instability of cloned human DNA, and the difficulties of cloning genes directly. Dr. Larionov made major advances on both fronts. First, he developed yeast strains in which the processes that tend to scramble cloned human DNA were inactivated. Second, he developed a completely new gene cloning strategy, which he named TAR cloning (TAR stands for transformation-associated recombination). This novel strategy allows the isolation of any human gene or locus directly from complex genomes without constructing and further screening genomic libraries. The NIH has patented the TAR cloning. In 2000, Dr. Larionov joined the NCI as the chief of the Genome Structure and Function Section in the Laboratory of Biosystems and Cancer (LBC) headed by Dr. Carl Barrett. In 2006, Dr. Larionov's section joined the Laboratory of Molecular Pharmacology (LMP) headed by Dr. Yves Pommier. At the NCI, Dr. Larionov has focused on two research areas: 1) gene duplication, evolution, diversifying selection, and cancer, and 2) human artificial chromosomes for functional and structural analysis of the human kinetochore and for a regulated gene expression. 

Cell Biology, Chromosome Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry