Mark Gomelsky is a Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Wyoming. He earned his MS degree (1988) in Industrial Microbiology from Moscow Institute for Chemical Technology and Ph.D. (1991) in Biological Sciences from Institute for Genetics and Selection of Industrial Microorganisms (Moscow, Russia). He received post-doctoral training at the Pasteur Institute in Paris and University of Texas Medical School in Houston, Texas.
Since establishing his laboratory at the University of Wyoming in 1999, Dr. Gomelsky has focused on bacterial signal transduction and photoreception. His laboratory has been among pioneers in the field of c-di-GMP-dependent signaling in bacteria, which turned out to play essential roles in biofilm formation and virulence. These studies resulted in his election as Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Gomelsky’s long-standing interest in bacterial photoreception has led to the discovery, characterization and subsequently, engineering of photoactivated enzymes of the BLUF and bacteriophytochrome families.
The Gomelsky group retains several foci of interest, including c-di-GMP-dependent signaling, bacterial anticancer therapy, and near-infrared optogenetics. The latter direction involves engineering near-infrared light controlled enzymes and genetic circuits and applying them in biomedical applications.