Shoukhrat Mitalipov (, russian: Шухрат Музапарович Миталипов; born 1961) is an American biologist who heads the Center for Embryonic Cell and Gene Therapy at the

Oregon Health & Science University Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) is a public research university focusing primarily on health sciences with a main campus, including two hospitals, in Portland, Oregon. The institution was founded in 1887 as the University of Oregon Med ...

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

. He is a well known pioneer of many nuclear transplantation studies and was named in 2013 by journal ''Nature'' as "the cloning chief". Mitalipov is also a godfather of a gene therapy, known as mitochondrial replacement therapy, that prevents inheritance of mitochondrial diseases. He discovered a new way of creating human

stem cells In multicellular organisms, stem cells are undifferentiated or partially differentiated cells that can differentiate into various types of cells and proliferate indefinitely to produce more of the same stem cell. They are the earliest type of ...

from skin cells.

Early life

Mitalipov was born in 1961 in Almaty,

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

, then part of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

. He is of Uyghur ancestry. He served two years in

Soviet military The Soviet Armed Forces, the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union and as the Red Army (, Вооружённые Силы Советского Союза), were the armed forces of the Russian SFSR (1917–1922), the Soviet Union (1922–1991), and th ...

, beginning in 1979, as an army radio technician.

Education

After the military, Mitalipov studied genetics at the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

and also played blues guitar in a cover band to pay the bills. After his graduation from the academy, he worked for a short time as the chief livestock specialist in a

kolkhoz A kolkhoz ( rus, колхо́з, a=ru-kolkhoz.ogg, p=kɐlˈxos) was a form of collective farm in the Soviet Union. Kolkhozes existed along with state farms or sovkhoz., a contraction of советское хозяйство, soviet ownership or ...

in the Yaroslavl region. He received his

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

in 1989. He earned his PhD in developmental and stem cell biology from the Research Centre of Medical Genetics in Moscow. After the

fall of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...

in 1991 funding for stem cell research was scarce, so Mitalipov applied for and won a fellowship at

Utah State University Utah State University (USU or Utah State) is a public land-grant research university in Logan, Utah. It is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. With nearly 20,000 students living on or near campus, USU is Utah ...

in 1995. He started working at the

Oregon National Primate Research Center The Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC) is one of seven federally funded National Primate Research Centers in the United States and has been affiliated with Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) since 1998. The center is located ...

in 1998, where he could work with monkeys, which share 98% of their DNA with humans; at Utah State Mitalipov had worked with cow DNA.

Breakthroughs

A therapy for

mitochondrial disease Mitochondrial disease is a group of disorders caused by mitochondrial dysfunction. Mitochondria are the organelles that generate energy for the cell and are found in every cell of the human body except red blood cells. They convert the energy of ...

s that Mitalipov discovered, the " spindle transfer" technique, involves removing the nucleus from a human egg and placing it into another. If the egg is fertilized, in genetic terms it would have three parents. Mitalipov has successfully bred " three-parent"

rhesus macaque The rhesus macaque (''Macaca mulatta''), colloquially rhesus monkey, is a species of Old World monkey. There are between six and nine recognised subspecies that are split between two groups, the Chinese-derived and the Indian-derived. Generally ...

s. The possibility of using the procedure on human eggs has raised safety and ethics questions. In May 2013, Mitalipov and his team published a study in ''

Cell Cell most often refers to: * Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life Cell may also refer to: Locations * Monastic cell, a small room, hut, or cave in which a religious recluse lives, alternatively the small precursor of a monastery ...

'' that describes a new process for creating human stem cells from skin cells. The stem cell discovery made several journals' "Top 10" scientific breakthrough lists in 2013, including ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

'', ''

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...

'', ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'', ''

Discover Discover may refer to: Art, entertainment, and media * ''Discover'' (album), a Cactus Jack album * ''Discover'' (magazine), an American science magazine Businesses and brands * DISCover, the ''Digital Interactive Systems Corporation'' * D ...

'', '' National Geographic'' and ''

The Week ''The Week'' is a weekly news magazine with editions in the United Kingdom and United States. The British publication was founded in 1995 and the American edition in 2001. An Australian edition was published from 2008 to 2012. A children's ed ...

''. In August 2017, Mitalipov's collaborative work with the

Institute for Basic Science The Institute for Basic Science (IBS; ) is a Korean government-funded research institute that conducts basic science research and relevant pure basic research. IBS was established in November 2011 by the Lee Myung-bak administration as a res ...

, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, Seoul National University, BGI-Shenzhen and BGI-Qingdao, was published in ''

''. performed the first known successful attempt at genetically correcting mutant human embryos, using the CRISPR/Cas9 gene modifying tool. Mitalipov and his team experimented upon a larger number of human embryos carrying a genetic defect causing heart disease. They demonstrated the possibility of safely and efficiently correcting the defective gene that cause inherited heart disease.

Honors and awards

* 1995 – Fellowship award, Exchange Visitor Program "Cooperation in Applied Sciences and Technologies (CAST)". Development of culture system to maintain pluripotency of bovine embryonic stem cells. Utah State University. * 2010 – Recipient of the 2010 Discovery Award, The Medical Research Foundation of Oregon * 2010 – Recipient of 2010 Women's Health Research Award, the Center for Women's Health, Circle of Giving * 2013 – Recognized by journal

as top 10 people who mattered in 2013 * 2017 – Recipient of "

Thousand Talents Plan The Thousand Talents Plan or Thousand Talents Program (TTP) (), or Overseas High-Level Talent Recruitment Programs () is a program by the central government of China to recruit experts in science and technology from abroad, principally but not ex ...

" Award in China in the category of the Recruitment Program for Foreign Experts

Salient publications

* :— Widely cited including by: ::*

References

External links

Shoukhrat Mitalipov
at the

Center for Embryonic Cell and Gene Therapy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mitalipov, Shoukhrat 1961 births Living people Oregon Health & Science University people American people of Kazakhstani descent American people of Uyghur descent 21st-century American biologists People from Almaty Stem cell researchers

Early life

Education

Breakthroughs

Honors and awards

Salient publications

See also

References

External links