Daria Shcherbakova received M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Chemistry from Moscow State University. During her Ph.D., she studied ribonucleoproteins. As a postdoc in the lab of Professor Verkhusha at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, she switched interest to studies of light-sensing proteins. Her postdoctoral work resulted in a development of a widely used series of near-infrared fluorescent proteins named (m)iRFPs.
Currently she is a Research Assistant Professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Department of Genetics. Her research focuses on engineering of natural photoreceptors into fluorescent reporters and non-opsin optogenetic tools. She aims at development of light-controlled proteins and protein networks for studies of living cells and organisms. She believes that unmatched precision of optogenetics should eventually go beyond model organisms and result in powerful gene and cell therapies.