Dr. Kulik earned his graduate degree at the Institute of Experimental Pathology in Kiev, Ukraine and obtained post-doctoral training in the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (London, UK) and University of Virginia (Charlottesville, USA). As a post-doctoral fellow Dr. Kulik identified for the first time the critical role of the PI3K/AKT signaling module in apoptosis inhibition by IGF-1. The importance of PI3K/AKT signaling for cell survival was later confirmed in numerous publications and now this signaling pathway is a major focus of leading pharmaceutical companies.
His laboratory investigated the mechanisms by which cancer cell signaling pathways become integrated into a robust regulatory network, and the ways this knowledge can be utilized to improve cancer diagnosis and therapy. Dr. Kulik group has made discoveries that provide insight into the linkage between emotional stress of an individual and the regulation of anti-apoptotic pathways in tumors.
Research program of Dr. Kulik integrates a variety of methods ranging from molecular biology and proteomics to transgenic mouse models of prostate cancer, bioluminescent imaging and behavioral studies in mice. Basic science findings on signaling network that controls apoptosis in prostate cancer cells made in his laboratory became a basis for translational projects that aim to examine effects of psychological stress on activation of neuroendocrine pathways in prostates of men and on prostate cancer progression and develop prostate tumor-specific inhibitors of anti-apoptotic signaling pathways. These projects are conducted in collaborations with experts in medicinal chemistry, in silico drug design, toxin targeted therapies, systems biology and clinical urology.
His laboratory investigated the mechanisms by which cancer cell signaling pathways become integrated into a robust regulatory network, and the ways this knowledge can be utilized to improve cancer diagnosis and therapy. Dr. Kulik group has made discoveries that provide insight into the linkage between emotional stress of an individual and the regulation of anti-apoptotic pathways in tumors.
Research program of Dr. Kulik integrates a variety of methods ranging from molecular biology and proteomics to transgenic mouse models of prostate cancer, bioluminescent imaging and behavioral studies in mice. Basic science findings on signaling network that controls apoptosis in prostate cancer cells made in his laboratory became a basis for translational projects that aim to examine effects of psychological stress on activation of neuroendocrine pathways in prostates of men and on prostate cancer progression and develop prostate tumor-specific inhibitors of anti-apoptotic signaling pathways. These projects are conducted in collaborations with experts in medicinal chemistry, in silico drug design, toxin targeted therapies, systems biology and clinical urology.