Dr. Elizaveta Benevolenskaya is a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics. Her research focuses on how histone demethylases and methyltransferases regulate gene expression in normal and cancer cells. Dr. Benevolenskaya has been engaged in cancer research since 1999, when she identified histone demethylase KDM5A/RBP2 as a critical protein interacting with the tumor suppressor pRB. This led her to an appreciation of the impact of epigenetic factors to the pRB control of cell cycle and promotion to differentiation.
Her research is focused on how histone demethylases and methyltransferases regulate gene expression in normal and cancer cells.