Ivan Rusyn

Ivan Rusyn’s laboratory, the Laboratory for Environmental Genomics, has an active research portfolio funded by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. EPA with a focus on the mechanisms of action of environmental toxicants and the genetic determinants of the susceptibility to toxicant-induced injury. Through a combination of in vivo animal studies and experiments that utilize cellular and molecular models, the lab aims to better understand why certain chemicals cause cancer or organ damage in rodents and whether humans in general, or any susceptible sub-population in particular, are at risk from similar exposures. This laboratory was the first to report on the genetic regulation of gene expression in the liver. This work established the basis for understanding the impact of the genetic variability on the toxicity pathways. His work is also defining a "toxicity susceptibility state" in mouse liver in response to acetaminophen, alcohol, peroxisome proliferators and trichloroethylene by combining knowledge of toxicology, metabolomics, gene expression profiling and mouse genetics. A key example of how the bedside-to-bench-to-bedside paradigm can serve to bridge clinical and experimental research is a recent paper published in collaboration with clinicians and geneticists where the genetic determinants of acetaminophen-induced liver injury were discovered. He is a professor in the Department of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and a faculty fellow with the Center for Health Systems and Design at Texas A&M. He earned a Ph.D. in toxicology from the University of North Carolina and an MD at Bogomolets National Medical University (Ukraine).