Dr. Ouliana Ziouzenkova

Ouliana Ziouzenkova, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Human Sciences at The Ohio State University (OSU). She completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine, and received her Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Graz, Austria. She completed postdoctoral training in the School of Pharmacology at the University of Southern California and at Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard University, USA. She is an Associate Editor at BMC Endocrine Disorders, PLoS ONE, Frontiers in Pharmacology, and Frontiers in Physiology. Dr. Ziouzenkova studies fundamental differentiation pathways. She proposed the neuroendocrine role of retinaldehyde in the regulation of nuclear receptors. This alternative vitamin A pathway opposes the action of retinoic acid and reprograms lipogenic fat into thermogenic fat. These studies led to the development of nanotechnology-based genetic therapy to treat obesity and the identification of novel proteins protecting from neurodegeneration, obesity, and hyperglycemia. Additional discovery of antioxidant-enhanced amino acid compounds in collaboration with Dr. Parquette (OSU) resulted in the development of therapeutics reducing hyperglycemia and preventing cognitive decline in animal models of type 1 and 2 diabetes. Her goal is to translate these findings into the development of new therapies preventing neurological complications of diabetes, including dementia.