I received my MD at Russian University of Friendship, Moscow. I then studied biochemistry and immunology during my graduate studies at Christian-Albrecht University, Germany. As a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University (USA), I studied signal transduction, and expanded my skills in transgenic mouse technologies. I joined UCSD as a principal investigator. The major interest of my research is the identification of new targets for the therapy of Alcoholic Liver Disease (ALD)- and Non-Alcoholic Liver Disease (NASH)-associated liver fibrosis and HCC. We study the gene expression profiles and epigenetic landscapes of mouse and human hepatic myofibroblasts during development and regression of liver fibrosis. Our work is also focused on the role of IL-17 in liver fibrosis and HCC. To translate our findings into patients, our laboratory has obtained extensive experience with isolation and cryopreservation of human hepatocytes, Kupffer cells, and Endothelial Cells from livers declined for transplantation, and generation of xenograft models of HCC and liver fibrosis in mice.