Prof. Shoukhrat Mitalipov earned his M.S. in reproduction in 1987 and then his Ph.D. in Human Genetics in 1994 from the Research Center for Medical Genetics in Moscow. He then moved in 1995 to the USA and completed a postdoctoral training at Utah State University and joined in 1998 as a faculty of Oregon Health & Science University. Currently, Prof. Mitalipov is a director of Center for Embryonic and Gene Therapy at Oregon Health & Science University. His research is focused on investigating and developing novel cell and gene therapy approaches in the area of reproductive medicine.

His laboratory pioneered the concept of mitochondrial/cytoplasmic replacement therapy (MRT) allowing replacement of defective cytoplasm or mutant mtDNA in patient eggs prior to fertilization. MRT approaches have been initially developed and tested in a nonhuman primate model and more recently extended to clinical trials for treatment of female infertility that resulted in birth of healthy children. MRT was also successfully used to prevent the transmission of pathogenic, maternally inherited mtDNA mutations from mothers to their children.