Katya Ravid
Professor of Biochemistry and Medicine
Departments of Biochemistry and Medicine
Director, Evans Center for Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research
Scientific Director, Transgenic Core and Research Resources
Boston University School of Medicine
Silvio Conte Building, K724
72 E. Concord Street
Boston, MA 02118
Phone: 617-638-5053
Fax: 617-638-5339
Email: ravid@biochem.bumc.bu.edu
Education
B.Sc., D.Sc./Ph.D., Technion-Israel Institute of Technology
Postdoctoral Fellowship, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Research Interest
The cells of all blood lineages arise from pluripotent hematopoietic stem cells that reside in the marrow. The bone marrow also contains stem cells of other lineages, including fat, vascular etc. Our research is focused on two interrelated projects that bear on mechanisms associated with the development of blood and vascular pathologies: (1) Studies in the lab center on molecular mechanisms involved in cell cycle control during the development of bone marrow megakaryocytes into platelets, a process that includes cellular polyploidization prior to platelet fragmentation. We also identified mechanisms of polyploidy in vascular smooth muscle cells, and found that the degree of polyploidy serves as an excellent biomarker for aging; (2) Ongoing studies explore the role of vascular and bone marrow cell (progenitors and mature) adenosine receptors in vascular regeneration during injury or atherosclerosis. Transgenic and knockout mouse models are used to assist in exploring mechanisms in vivo.
Representative Publications
Yang, D., Koupenova, M., McCrann, D.J., Kopeikina, K.J., Kagan, H., Schreiber, B.M., and Ravid, K. (2008) The A2b adenosine receptor protects against vascular injury. PNAS 05(2):792-796. PMID: 18184815
Grenz, A., Osswald, H., Eckle, T. Yang, D., Zhang, H., Z. V., Tran, Klingel, K., Ravid, K., and Eltzschig, H. K. (2008) The reno-vascular A2B adenosine receptor protects the kidney from ischemia. PLoS Medicine Jun 24;5(6):e137. PMID: 18578565
Papadantonakis, N, Makitalo, M, McCrann, DJ, Liu, K., Nguyen, HG, Martin, G., Patel-Hett, G., Italiano, JE, and Ravid, K. Direct visualization of the endomitotic cell cycle in living megakaryocytes: differential patterns in low and high ploidy cells. Cell Cycle. 2008 Aug;7(15):2352-6. PMID: 18677109
McCrann, D.J., Yezefski, T., Nguyen, H.G., Liu, H., Wen, Q., Crispino, J.D., and Ravid, K. (2008) Survivin overexpression in transgenic mice does not alter megakaryocyte ploidy status nor interfere with erythroid/megakaryocytic lineage development. Blood 111(8):4092-4095. PMID: 18245663
Yang, D., McCrann, DJ, Nguyen, H.G., St. Hilaire, C. DePinho R.A., Jones, M.R., and Ravid, K. (2007) Increased polyploidy in aortic vascular smooth muscle cells during aging is marked by cellular senescence. Aging Cell 6:257-260.
Yang,D., Zhang, Y. Nguyen, H.G., Koupenova, M., Chauhan, A.K., Makitalo, M., Jones, M. R., St. Hilaire, C., Toselli, P., Lamperti, E., Schreiber, B.M., Gavras, H., Wagner, D.D. and Ravid, K. (2006) The A2b adenosine receptor protects against inflammation and excessive vascular adhesion. Journal of Clinical Investigation 116:1913-1923.
Hazony, Y., Lu, J. St. Hilaire, C. and Ravid, K. (2006) Hematopoietic gene promoters subjected to a group-combinatorial study of DNA samples: identification of a megakaryocytic selective DNA signature. Nucleic Acids Res. 34:4416-4428.
Nagata, Y., Jones, M.R., Nguyen, H.G., McCrann, D.J., St. Hilaire, C., Schreiber, B.M., Hashimoto, A., Inagaki, M., Earnshaw, W.C., Todokoro, K. and Ravid, K. (2005) Vascular Smooth Muscle Cell Polyploidization Involves Changes in Chromosome Passenger Proteins and an Endomitotic Cell Cycle. Expt. Cell Res. 305:277-291.
