Biography
Kiryl Piatkevich is an Assistant Professor in the School of Life Sciences at Westlake University. Since early childhood, Dr. Piatkevich was fond of chemistry and pursuing his passion for science he enrolled in Lyceum of Belarussian State University at age of 15 to study chemistry. Following the graduation from the Lyceum, Dr. Piatkevich continued his education at Lomonosov Moscow State University while doing research in metalorganic, analytical, physical, and bio-organic chemistry. After receiving a Master of Science degree in Chemistry with honors, Dr. Piatkevich was accepted to a joint Ph.D. program between Moscow State University and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York to work on the development of the innovative approaches for intravital imaging of small mammals. After receiving a Ph.D. in Chemistry, Dr. Piatkevich joined Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a Postdoctoral Associate to do research in the Synthetic Neurobiology group led by Dr. Edward Boyden, a world-recognized pioneer in optogenetics and neuro-engineering. During postdoctoral training, he worked on novel methods of neural interfacing using synthetic biology and developed several new molecular technologies for observing neuronal activity in live behaving animals. Dr. Piatkevich was the first to perform the optical recording of neuronal activity with high temporal precision in major neuroscience model organism, including worms, fish, and mice. Starting in 2019, Dr. Piatkevich leads the Molecular Bioengineering Group in the School of Life Sciences (www.piatkevich-lab.com).
History
2021
Recipient of Research Fund for International Scientists by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC)
2020
NARSAD Young Investigator Award by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation
Research
Dr. Piatkevich research is focused on invention and engineering of new cutting-edge molecular and imaging technologies for analyzing, controlling, and repairing complex biological systems such as the brain. Engineering the genetically encoded molecular tools for optical recording and manipulation of neuronal activity, as well as fluorescent probes for the anatomical tracing of neurons is an interdisciplinary research program, which will span synthetic and chemical biology, bioengineering, biochemistry, biotechnology, molecular in vivo imaging, neuroscience, robotics, and cell biology. His group applies developed technologies systematically to reveal underpinning molecular mechanism of brain disorder and to understand ground truth principles of neural codes. The new molecular technologies are also utilized to create advanced brain machine interfaces by means of light.
Representative Publications
1. Piatkevich K.D.#, Bensussen S.#, Tseng H.#, Shroff S.N., Lopez-Huerta V.G., Park D., Jung E.E., Shemesh O.A., Straub C., Gritton H.J., Romano M.F, Costa E., Sabatini B.L., Fu Z, Boyden E.S., Han X. Population imaging of neural activity in awake behaving mice. Nature 2019, in press (# equal contribution).
2. Qian Y.#, Piatkevich K.D.#, McLarney B.#, Abdelfattah A.S., Mehta S., Gottschalk S., Molina R.S., Zhang W., Drobizhev M., Hughes T.E., Zhang J., Schreiter E.R., Shoham S., Razansky D., Boyden E.S., Campbell R.E. A Genetically Encoded Near-Infrared Fluorescent Calcium Ion Indicator. Nature Methods, 16 (2), 171 (# equal contribution).
3. Piatkevich K.D.#, Jung E.E.#, Straub C., Linghu C., Park D., Suk H.J., Hochbaum D.R., Goodwin D., Pnevmatikakis E., Pak N., Kawashima T., Yang C.-T., Rhoades J.L., Shemesh O., Asano S., Yoon Y.-G., Freifeld L., Saulnier J., Riegler C., Engert F., Hughes T., Drobizhev M., Szabo B., Ahrens M.B., Flavell S.W., Sabatini B.L., Boyden E.S. A Robotic multidimensional directed evolution approach applied to fluorescent voltage reporters. Nature Chemical Biology, 14 (4), 352 (# equal contribution).
4. Piatkevich K.D., Suk H.J., Suhasa B.K., Yoshida F., DeGennaro E.M., Dro bizhev M., Hughes T.E., Desimone R., Boyden E.S.*, Verkhusha V.V. Near-infrared fluorescence proteins engineered from bacterial phytochromes in neuroimaging. Biophys. J. 113(10), 2299-2309.
5. Piatkevich K.D., English B.P., Malashkevich V.N., Xiao H., Almo S.C., Singer R.H., Verkhusha V.V. Photoswitchable red fluorescent protein with a large Stokes shift. Chem Biol. 2014. 21:1402.
6. Piatkevich K.D.*, Murdock M.H., Subach F.V.* Advances in engineering and application of optogenetic indicators for neuroscience. Applied Sciences. 2019, 9(3), 562. (*co-corresponding).
7. Tillberg P.W.#, Chen F.#, Piatkevich K.D., Zhao Y., Yu C.C., English B.P., Gao L., Martorell A., Suk H.J., Yoshida F., DeGennaro E.M., Roossien D.H., Gong G., Seneviratne U., Tannenbaum S.R., Desimone R., Cai D., Boyden E.S. Protein-retention expansion microscopy of cells and tissues labeled using standard fluorescent proteins and antibodies. Nature Biotechnology. 34 (9), 987-992 (# equal contribution).
8. Shemesh O.A., Tanese D., Zampini V., Linghu C., Piatkevich K., Ronzitti E., Papagiakoumou E., Boyden E.S., Emiliani V. Temporally precise single-cell resolution optogenetics. Nature Neuroscience. 20(12), 1796-1806.
9. Subach O.M, Barykina N.V., Anokhin K.V., Piatkevich K.D., Subach F.V. Near-Infrared Genetically Encoded Positive Calcium Indicator Based on GAF-FP Bacterial Phytochrome. Int. J. Mol. Sci., 20(14), 3488.
10. Subach O.M., Kunitsyna T.A., Mineyeva O.A., Lazutkin A.A., Bezryadnov D.V., Barykina N.V., Piatkevich K.D., Ermakova Y.G., Bilan D.S., Belousov V.V., Anokhin K.V., Enikolopov G.N.*, Subach F.V.* Slowly reducible genetically encoded green fluorescent indicator for in vivo and ex vivo visualization of hydrogen peroxide. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 20(13), 3138;
11. Barykina N.V., Doronin D.A., Subach O.M., Sotskov V.P., Plusnin V.V., Ivleva O.A., Gruzdeva A.M., Kunitsyna T.A., Ivashkina O.I., Lazutkin A.A., Malyshev A.Y., Smirnov I.V., Varizhuk A.M., Pozmogova G.E., Piatkevich K.D., Anokhin K.V., Enikolopov G.N., Subach F.V*. NTnC-like genetically encoded calcium indicator with a positive and enhanced response and fast kinetics. Scientific Reports, 8 (1), 15233.
12. Doronin D., Barykina N., Subach O., Isaakova E., Varizhuk A., Pozmogova G., Piatkevich K., Anokhin K., Enikolopov G., Subach F.* Genetically encoded calcium indicator with NTnC-like design and enhanced fluorescence contrast. BMC Biotechnology, 18 (1), 10.
13. Barykina N.V., Subach O.M., Piatkevich K.D., Jung E.E., Malyshev A.Y., Smirnov I.V., Bogorodskiy A.O., Borshchevskiy V.I., Varizhuk A.M., Pozmogova G.E., Boyden E.S., Anokhin K.V., Enikolopov G.N., Subach F.V.*. Green fluorescent genetically encoded calcium indicator based on calmodulin/M13-peptide from fungi. PLoS One. 12(8):e0183757.
14. Rowlands C.J., Park D., Bruns O.T., Piatkevich K.D., Fukumura D., Jain R.K., Bawendi M.G., Boyden E.S., So P.T.C.*. Wide-field three-photon excitation in biological samples. Light: Science & Applications. 6, e16255.
15. Barykina N.V., Subach O.M., Doronin D.A., Sotskov V.P., Roshchina M.A., Kunitsyna T.A., Malyshev A.Y., Smirnov I.V., Azieva A.M., Sokolov I.S., Piatkevich K.D., Burtsev M.S., Varizhuk A.M., Pozmogova G.E., Anokhin K.V., Subach F.V.*, Enikolopov G.N.*. A new design for a green calcium indicator with a smaller size and a reduced number of calcium-binding sites. Scientific Reports. 6:34447.
16. Konold P.E., Yoon E., Lee J., Allen S.L., Chapagain P.P., Gerstman B.S., Regmi C.K., Piatkevich K.D., Verkhusha V.V., Joo T., Jimenez R.*. Fluorescence from multiple chromophore hydrogen-bonding states in the far-red protein TagRFP675. J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 7, 3046-3051.
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