International Eurasian Academy of Sciences, IEAS

Academician

Vladimir L. Katanaev

Profile:

Elected Academician of the International Eurasian Academy of Sciences on 21 May 2021, Professor Vladimir L. Katanaev is a distinguished Russian-Swiss molecular pharmacologist and an internationally recognised authority on Wnt signalling, G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) biology, and translational oncology. Born in Siberia, he received his M.Sc. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Krasnoyarsk State University and Moscow State University (Pushchino Branch) in 1994, followed by a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, in 2000. He subsequently conducted postdoctoral research at Columbia University in New York (2000–2005), where he initiated his seminal studies of Wnt/Frizzled signalling in Drosophila development. After establishing an independent research group at the University of Konstanz, Germany, he joined the University of Lausanne as Associate Professor in 2011. In 2018, he was appointed Full Professor and Chair of Translational Oncology at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, where he also serves as Academic Director of the HumanFly Facility. Since 2024, he has additionally served as Scientific Director of the Translational Oncology Research Center at the Qatar Biomedical Research Institute, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, while maintaining research activities at Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok.

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Professor Katanaev’s research centres on the molecular mechanisms underlying oncogenic signalling and their translation into precision therapeutic strategies, with particular emphasis on the Wnt/Frizzled pathway in breast cancer and GPCR-mediated regulation of membrane dynamics in cancer and neurological disorders. By integrating Drosophila genetics, mammalian cell biology, medicinal chemistry, and bio-inspired nanotechnology, his laboratory has identified novel components of cellular signalling, including RPS12 as a regulator of Wnt signalling and WDR74 as a driver of metastatic progression in lung cancer and melanoma. His work has also pioneered the repurposing of the anti-leprosy drug clofazimine as a selective Wnt-pathway inhibitor, opening new therapeutic possibilities for triple-negative breast cancer and other Wnt-dependent malignancies. His selected works span fundamental discoveries in GPCR signalling, oncogenic information processing, membrane dynamics, and bio-inspired nanostructures, illustrating a research programme that connects mechanistic cell biology with therapeutic innovation and advances the development of next-generation approaches to cancer treatment.