Peter Stoilov, Ph.D.

Most Involved Faculty Member

Congratulations to Dr. Peter Stoilov for being named the “Most Involved Faculty Member” of the Biochemistry Department’s Seminar Series and Research Forum. The departmental Seminar Series is presented by scientists invited from outside of the department or institution, with the goal of broadening our awareness of state-of-the-art developments in research and, potentially, stimulating new collaborative efforts. The weekly departmental Research Forum is aninternal mechanism designed to stimulate a lively discussion by faculty, research staff, and students of current research in laboratories across thedepartment. The students were asked to vote for the faculty member who combined a stellar record for attending seminars and forum with active, constructive participation in discussions at these venues. Peter, a new faculty member who joined the Biochemistry Department as an Assistant Professor in early 2010, was their choice. Peter is also always eager to assist graduate students with their research by sharing his technical expertise and laboratory resources.

Thanks, Peter, for all your help and Congrats!!

New Faculty Member

Dr. Peter Stoilov joined the WVU School of Medicine faculty this spring as a new Assistant Professor in Biochemistry. Peter just completed his postdoctoral studies with Doug Black in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics at UCLA. His research activities have examined the regulation of RNA splicing, and he has developed a novel assay to screen for compounds that specifically alter the pattern of splicing in mRNAs that exhibit alternate splicing. Often these alternatively spliced messages encode products with dramatically different biochemical/biological properties. While at UCLA, Peter's work was supported by a Muscular Dystrophy Association Development grant, and he is a co-Investigator on a pilot project at UCLA to screen for compounds that alter the splicing of the mRNA from a gene called SMN2. Under development in his new laboratory are projects designed to perturb splicing patterns of mRNAs that exhibit different splicing patterns in cancer cells and in normal cells.

Peter is from Bulgaria and studied Biology as an undergraduate at Sofia University; he received his MSc in Biochemistry and Microbiology from Sofia University as well. Upon graduation, Peter worked at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in the Institute of Molecular Biology (also in Sofia) before pursuing his doctoral studies. Peter performed his dissertation research in Germany in Dr. Stefan Stamm's laboratory at the Max-Plank-Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried and at the Friedrich-Alexander-University in Erlangen. It was during this time that Peter developed an interest in RNA splicing, while exploring mechanisms of alternative splicing of mRNA encoded by the Tra2-beta gene. Welcome to the Department of Biochemistry and to WVU...!!