Dr. Elena Tourkina is a research Assistant Professor in the Division of Rheumatology & Immunology at the Medical University of South Carolina. She received an MS in Biochemistry and Virology at the Moscow State University and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology at  Belozerskiy Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Bioorganic Chemistry, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia. She joined the Division of Rheumatology at MUSC in 1993.

Dr. Tourkina’s research interest is lung fibrosis and inflammation in scleroderma. Her scientific interests are the molecular and cellular mechanisms that regulate collagen synthesis and immune respond in healthy lungs and in pathological conditions such as fibrosis and inflammation. She recently established the role of caveolin-1, the main caveolae protein in the regulation of collagen expression and myofibroblast differentiation in the lung fibroblasts.  It was demonstrated that caveolin-1 plays a central role in regulating collagen expression in normal lung fibroblasts (NLF) as a participant in a signaling cascade that also includes members of the PKC and MAPK families of signaling proteins.  These studies also suggested that the low level of caveolin-1 expression in scleroderma lung fibroblasts (SLF) leads to their overexpression of collagen, and alpha-smooth muscle actin, the myofibroblast marker.

Recent observations suggest that caveolin-1 is also a key signaling molecule in monocytes/ macrophages whose expression is altered in scleroderma lung disease.  Caveolin-1 can serve as a central molecule in signaling cascades because it is a scaffolding protein that binds to a variety of kinases and thereby regulates their activity.

Her second area of investigation is a collaborative project with Dr. Stanley Hoffman on curcumin, a major component of the spice turmeric, which has been used in traditional Chinese and Indian herbal medicine to treat a wide range of conditions. It was shown that, curcumin causes SLF, but not NLF, to undergo apoptosis and that curcumin protects mice against bleomycin-induced lung fibrosis (commonly considered a model for scleroderma lung disease and IPF). The history of traditional herbal medicine demonstrates that curcumin is not toxic and may be used as a treatment for lung fibrosis in human patients.

Both projects are supported by grants from the Scleroderma Foundation and from the National Blood and Lung Institute.

Dr. Tourkina's Curriculum Vitae (PDF Format)*

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