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Victor Solodushko, Ph.D.

Victor Solodushko, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Pharmacology

Biography

Dr. Victor Solodushko, Associate Professor, received his Master of Science and Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Kiev State University, Kiev, Ukraine, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in cell biology and neuroscience at the Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine.

Research

Although current therapies for chronic pulmonary hypertension have improved patient survival, the long-term outcome from this disease remains unfavorable. Recently researchers have focused on endothelial progenitor cells as a potential treatment for this disease. We propose that inducible pluripotent stem cells, obtained by reprogramming the host’s own easily accessible somatic cells, are a promising and novel source of endothelial progenitor cells that can be used for the treatment of pulmonary hypertension. Dr. Solodushko designs removable transposon-viral hybrid vectors to generate endothelial progenitor cells from somatic cells and test their therapeutic potential in animals and humans. Dr. Solodushko is also working on developing of new transposon-based vectors, alternative approach to viral and naked plasmid delivery of nucleic acids.

Publications

Solodushko V, Fouty B. Terminal hairpins improve protein expression in IRES-initiated mRNA in the absence of a cap and polyadenylated tail. Gene Ther. 2023 Aug;30(7-8):620-627. doi: 10.1038/s41434-023-00391-4. Epub 2023 Feb 24. PMID: 36828937; PMCID: PMC9951143.

Rayner JO, Kim JH, Roberts RW, Wood RR, Fouty B, Solodushko V. Evaluation of DNA-Launched Virus-Like Particle Vaccines in an Immune Competent Mouse Model of Chikungunya Virus Infection. Vaccines (Basel). 2021 Apr 2;9(4):345. doi: 10.3390/vaccines9040345. PMID: 33918409; PMCID: PMC8067036.

Solodushko V, Bitko V, Barrington R, Fouty B. A DNA Vaccine in Which the RSV-F Ectodomain Is Covalently Linked to the Burkholderia pseudomallei Antigens TssM and Hcp1 Augments the Humoral and Cytotoxic Response in Mice. Front Immunol. 2019 Oct 11;10:2411. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2019.02411. PMID: 31681300; PMCID: PMC6797551.

Troyanovsky B, Bitko V, Pastukh V, Fouty B, Solodushko V. The Functionality of Minimal PiggyBac Transposons in Mammalian Cells. Mol Ther Nucleic Acids. 2016 Oct 4;5(10):e369. doi: 10.1038/mtna.2016.76. PMID: 27701401; PMCID: PMC5095681.

Troyanovsky B, Bitko V, Fouty B, Solodushko V. Simple viral/minimal piggyBac hybrid vectors for stable production of self-inactivating gamma-retroviruses. BMC Res Notes. 2015 Aug 27;8:379. doi: 10.1186/s13104-015-1354-y. PMID: 26306622; PMCID: PMC4549879.