Konstantin Severinov

Biography

Konstantin is a professor at the Molecular Biology and Biochemistry department at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, and a head of laboratory at the Waksman Institute for Microbiology. He also heads a Laboratory of genetic regulation of prokaryotic mobile genetic elements at the Institute of Molecular Genetics at the Russian Academy of Sciences and a Laboratory of molecular genetics of microorganisms at the Institute of Gene Biology at the Russian Academy of Sciences.He is a member of the Science and Technology Council of the Russian Nanotechnology corporation and a consultant for 7 biotech companies and several Russian government agencies. He has produced over 200 peer-reviewed publications and 6 patents. Konstantin works on genetic, biochemical, and structural analyses of transcription mechanism and regulation in bacteria. He also studies the regulation of macromolecular synthesis during the process of bacteriophage infection and various molecular interactions between bacteriophages and their host bacteria. Another main direction of his research involves analysis of antibacterial peptides called microcins: their structures, mechanisms of function, evolution, and the use as new antibiotics.

Research Interest

RNA transcription Bacterial RNA polymerase structure-function and mechanism Bacteriophage development and interactions with bacterial hosts Structure-activity analysis of antibacterial peptides Studies of bacterial diversity in extreme environments