Olga Dontsova - Biography#

Olga A. Dontsova works in the field of Molecular Biology and Bioorganic Chemistry. Her main scientific interest is connected with the investigation of structure functional relations within ribonucleoprotein complexes.

Olga A. Dontsova is the author of 105 scientific papers. Her total citation index (ICI) is 1456, h-index is 21.

Professor Dontsova together with her colleagues has developed new strategy for investigation of nucleoprotein complexes which was based on the combination of chemical biochemical and genetic approaches. This strategy allowed to determine the mRNA topography at the ribosome decoding center, functional topography of 5S rRNA in the ribosome as well as to clarify the function of the ribosomal exit site and interaction between the ribosomal functional centers. Applications of this strategy to the investigation of transfer-messenger RNA function during trans-translation allowed to derive the molecular dynamic model for the mechanism of trans-translation. During last years her laboratory has discovered series on novel RNA methyltransferases and investigated their functional properties. Novel yeast telomerase that have unusual properties was found recently.

The work of the laboratory of Professor Dontsova has been supported by number of international and Russian grants (HHMI, HFSP, CRDF, INTAS, RFFI, Russian Ministry of Science and Education and etc.)

Olga Dontsova was awarded by Prize from Academia Europaea, was elected as a Corresponding Member of Russian Academy of Sciences. Many times she was invited to speak at different international congresses and was a member of Program Committees. She is a member of Editorial board of Biochimie, Russian Journal of Molecular Biology, Acta Naturae. Head of the Biology Panel in Russian Scientific Foundation.

Prof. Dontsova was scientific supervisor of 21 Ph.D. students and numerous diploma studies, teaching several lecture courses for students of Moscow State University.