Ludmila Prokunina-Olsson is a molecular medical geneticist who conducts genetic and functional analyses downstream of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for various human traits, including cancer, immune and infectious diseases. She is chief of the Laboratory of Translational Genomics (LTG) at the National Cancer Institute.
Prokunina-Olsson attended Novosibirsk State University from 1986 to 1989. She then went on to earn her M. Sc. in molecular genetics at Moscow State University in Russia from 1989 to 1994. From there, she continued her education at Uppsala University Faculty of Medicine in Sweden, where she received her Ph.D. in 2004 in human medical genetics. Her dissertation was titled Strategies for identification of susceptibility genes in complex autoimmune diseases. Marta Alarcon-Riquelme was her doctoral advisor and Juha Kere was an opponent of her dissertation. Prokunina-Olsson began her fellowship with the National Human Genome Research Institute, NIH in the Genome Technology branch from 2005 to 2008.
Prokunina-Olsson began her career working as a research associate from 1992 to 1994 with the National Center for Medical Genetics in Moscow in the DNA diagnostics laboratory. She then began working as a visiting scientist at the Karolinska Institute between December 1994 and August 1998 where she completed research regarding the physical mapping of tumor suppressor genes. In 2008 she began working as a research fellow in the Laboratory of Translational Genomics of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, shortly after, in 2010 Prokunina-Olsson became a full-time investigator with this laboratory. In 2014 she then became a senior investigator. Then, in February 2018 she became the acting director of the laboratory of translational genomics before being promoted to director in December. In her career Prokunina-Olsson focuses on the connections between the genome-wide association studies (GWAS)-identified genetic susceptibility variants and molecular phenotypes of importance for cancer. Some of her findings have resulted in translational and clinical applications. Prokunina-Olsson is also involved in research regarding bladder cancer and how somatic mutagenesis in bladder tumors is regulated by both inheritance and environmental factors.
At NIH, Prokunina-Olsson is most interested in researching how variations in genes discovered by recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are correlated to cancer.
One of her main interests includes research into bladder cancer. Using information from GWAS, which determined genes that are associated with an increased risk of bladder cancer in people of European descent, she has done research that looks more closely at the specific gene changes involved and how these changes affect the gene and their function. In her lab they explore differences in gene regions that are coding and non-coding. Her and her team do this by doing experiments involving DNA sequencing, RNA sequencing, cell culturing, editing of the genome, studying of how proteins and RNA are expressed, and how proteins and DNA interact.
Another area of interest for Prokunina-Olsson involves infection and cancer. While studying the results of a GWAS on hepatitis C virus infections, Ludmilla discovered IFN-û4, which is a human interferon. Her and her team also studied the receptor that the COVID-19 virus binds to, ACE2, and in doing so discovered a similar receptor called dACE2 that is found in squamous cell tumors. The results of this research were helpful in determining the etiology and epidemiology of COVID-19 as well as treatments and prognoses for COVID-19.
As Chief of the Laboratory of Translational Genomics at the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Ludmila Prokunina-Olsson, Ph.D., has made significant contributions to the scientific community through numerous peer-reviewed publications in cancer genetics, immunogenomics, and infectious disease susceptibility. With over 100 publications, a few among her work are: