Ilia V. Baskakov received his early scientific training in Moscow and developed a research specialization spanning bioorganic chemistry, biophysics, protein folding, and neurodegenerative disease. His academic formation connected molecular studies of protein structure with experimental investigations of prion conversion and amyloid assembly.
Baskakov earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Lomonosov Moscow University in 1990 and a Master of Science degree in bioorganic chemistry from the same university in 1992. He received a Ph.D. in biophysics from the Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow in 1996. He subsequently completed postdoctoral training in biophysics and protein folding at the University of Texas Medical Branch and postdoctoral training in prion biology at the University of California, San Francisco.
Baskakov began his postdoctoral career at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, where he worked with D. W. Bolen from 1996 to 1998 on protein folding and established an approach for studying the folding of natively unfolded proteins. This work contributed to the characterization of the osmophobic effect as a thermodynamic force that stabilizes folded proteins. From 1999 to 2001, he conducted postdoctoral research on prions in the laboratory of Stanley B. Prusiner at the University of California, San Francisco. There he helped develop the foundations of synthetic-prion research and contributed to experiments demonstrating that amyloid fibrils prepared in vitro could induce transmissible prion disease in animals. Baskakov joined the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute in 2001 as an assistant professor at the Medical Biotechnology Center and became an associate professor there in 2006. From 2010 to 2013 he was an associate professor in the Center for Biomedical Engineering and Technology and the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He became a professor in 2013 and continues to hold professorial appointments in Neurobiology and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. His research addresses prion diseases, protein misfolding, amyloid structure, neurodegeneration, neuroinflammation, reactive astrocytes, reactive microglia, and Alzheimer's disease. He has contributed more than 50 articles to professional journals.
Developed a pioneering experimental approach for studying the folding of natively unfolded proteins during postdoctoral research at the University of Texas Medical Branch.
Helped establish synthetic-prion research and contributed to the first demonstration that amyloid fibrils prepared in vitro could induce transmissible prion disease in animals.
Contributed to research showing that recombinant prion protein converted into an amyloid form could induce a transmissible prion disease in wild-type animals.
Published more than 50 articles in professional journals.
(Opinion article by Baskakov discussing possible etiologic...)
2025(Research article co-authored by Baskakov reporting transm...)
2010(Research article co-authored by Baskakov that characteriz...)
2001(Minireview by Baskakov addressing conformational switchin...)
2009(Science article on the generation of synthetic mammalian ...)
2004(Research article by Baskakov and collaborators examining ...)
2002(Review article co-authored by Baskakov on the relationshi...)
2018(Review article co-authored by Baskakov examining the rang...)
2014(Review article by Baskakov on the polymerization mechanis...)
2007(Round-table review co-authored by Baskakov on structural ...)
2019(Research article by Ilia V. Baskakov and collaborators on...)
1998Baskakov conducted postdoctoral research under D. W. Bolen at the University of Texas Medical Branch and under Stanley B. Prusiner at the University of California, San Francisco. His later research has included collaborations with investigators in prion biology, protein structure, neurobiology, and neurodegenerative disease.
