Shervin (Seyedtaghi) Takyar, MD, PhD

I did my PhD in microbiology and molecular biology in The University of Queensland, Australia. During my PhD I worked and published on a variety of projects including developing a new lentiviral vector based on JDV (Jembrana Disease Virus), translational regulation in HCV by small RNA-binding molecules and the viral core protein, and RNA-protein interactions in positive strand RNA viruses. During this time I was also involved in cloning the Australian isolate of HCV with Dr Eric Gowans. My findings in these projects were published in a variety of journal including PNAS, Hepatology, and Journal of Molecular Biology.My next stop was a postdoctoral fellowship with Prof. Harry Noller at the RNA Center in UCSC where I delved deeper into the RNA world and studied the helicase activity of the ribosome during translation. Our work was well received and published in Cell.

I started my Internal Medicine residency at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo in 2003. During the last year of my residency I took part in a research project led by Dr Sands on the role of TIMP-1 in reactive airway disease. Our work was published in Clinical Immunology. I was then recruited to the Pulmonary Critical Care Fellowship at Yale in 2007, and worked with Dr J Elias to set up a platform for analyzing the role of microRNAs in the lung disease using the transgenic models that have been developed in his lab. I started this work on an inducible, lung-specific, VEGF transgenic model and within the first year of the project found a microRNA that was regulated by VEGF and mediated the effects of this cytokine in the lung. Based on these findings we filed a patent on the diagnostic and therapeutic use of miR-1 in lung disease. I received a K99/R00 award in the third year of my clinical fellowship for my work on this project. I was directly recruited as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Yale Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine Section at the end of my fellowship.

Since starting my tenure track position in 2010 I have been awarded the AAP (American Association of Physicians) Junior Investigator Award for my work on microRNAs in the lung and have given invited presentations at various international conferences. Our work on the role of VEGF-miR-1 axis in lung Th2 inflammation was published in Journal of Experimental Medicine. I successfully transitioned to the R00 (Independent investigator) phase of my NIH grant in 2013. I have recruited and worked with two postdoctoral fellows and three Associate Research Scientists over the last three years. My research currently focuses on the role of vascular non-coding RNAs in Th2 inflammation, lung injury and cancer.