Bioelectrics News
Andrei Pakhomov wins the Frank Reidy Award for Outstanding Achievements in Bioelectrics
From left to right: Luis Redondo, Andrei Pakhomov and Richard Heller
Andrei G. Pakhomov, research professor and executive director of the Frank Reidy Research Center for Bioelectrics, is the recipient of the 2023 Frank Reidy Award for Outstanding Achievements in Bioelectrics. The award was presented at the 16th International Bioelectrics Symposium in Lisbon in September.
Established in 2010, the Frank Reidy Award for Outstanding Achievements in Bioelectrics recognizes a scientist working in the field of bioelectrics who has made significant scientific contributions to the fields of electrical effects on cells and tissue.
About Andrei Pakhomov
Andrei Pakhomov received a M.S. degree in animal and human physiology from Moscow State University in 1982 and a Ph.D. in radiation biology from the Medical Radiology Research Center in Obninsk, Russia, in 1989. He served as a leading scientist at the Medical Radiology Research Center in Obninsk until receiving a Resident Research Associateship Award from the US National Research Council in 1994. Over the next ten years at Brooks City-Base in San Antonio, TX, he studied bioeffects of mm-waves, extremely high peak power microwaves, and nanosecond-duration electric field pulses, with an emphasis on specific (nonthermal) mechanisms of interaction. In 2005, he became a Research Associate Professor at the Frank Reidy Research Center for Bioelectrics in Norfolk, VA, where he currently works as a research professor and executive director.
Dr. Pakhomov's research focuses on nanosecond electric pulses (nsEP) as a modality for cell activation and nanoelectroporation. Dr. Pakhomov is the author of more than 110 articles in peer-reviewed journals and 10 book chapters. He is a member of the editorial board of Bioelectrochemistry, Scientific Reports, and the International Journal of Molecular Sciences. He also served in multiple Ad Hoc reviewer panels for national and international agencies. In 2020 he was listed by a Stanford study among the top 2% of the most-cited scientists in his research field.
Over the past two decades, Dr. Pakhomov has made rigorous scientific contributions to the field of bioelectrics. In a series of pioneering investigations in parallel with the teams led by T. Vernier and J. Weaver, he demonstrated that nsEP could open nanopores in the cell plasma membrane. This work led to the characterization of nanopores, including their size, lifetime, and peculiar conductance properties analogous to ion channels. In collaboration with Dr. Olga Pakhomova, Andrei would go on to investigate mechanisms controlling cell death and recovery after electric injury, a key topic for the development of tumor and tissue ablation technologies using electric pulses.
More recently, Dr. Pakhomov's research uncovered bipolar cancellation, a phenomenon unique to nanosecond pulses, which stands for the suppression of bioeffects of nsEP when the electric field polarity is reversed.
His research was supported by grants from NHLBI, NCI, NIBIB, NIGMS, NYI, Pulse Bioscience, AFRL, and AFOSR, including a multi-university $7.5M MURI grant. This work culminated in a paradigm-shifting CANCAN technique for targeted remote cell stimulation and tissue ablation.
Andrei Pakhomov has mentored and trained graduate students and postdocs in cell biology, biophysics, and electrophysiology, resulting in numerous independent researchers working in both academia and industry worldwide. Beyond his scientific achievements, Andrei Pakhomov is also recognized as the Executive Director of the Frank Reidy Center for Bioelectrics.
We extend our heartfelt congratulations to Dr. Pakhomov on this well-deserved award and wish him continued success in his future endeavors and achievements.
Andrei Pakhomov answering questions from the audience at Bioelectrics 2023
Prof. Pakhomov's team
From left to right: Mantas Silkunas, Vitalii Kim, Iurii Semenov, Olga Pakhomova, Andrei Pakhomov and Emily Gudvangen.