Vladimir L Katanaev

My research focuses on the evolutionary conserved Wnt/Frizzled signaling pathway, which is crucial for organism development but is also important in the adult, regulating stem cell proliferation, tissue regeneration, synapse formation, and when misactivated – cancer. Targeted pharmacological downregulation of the Wnt pathway has so far been elusive. Establishment of novel paradigms for the Wnt-targeting drug discovery, as well as discovering novel molecular components of the Wnt pathway as potential drug targets is imperative to advance this domain of biomedicine. My laboratory is active in both. We have discovered numerous novel players in Wnt signaling and established multiple "lines of attack" against the Wnt pathway in cancer, creating an ever-expanding portfolio of drug candidates.