Current Position: Research Scientist 

Research Interests:

• Molecular mechanisms controlling plant responses to pathogen attack
• Biosynthesis and transcriptional regulation of plant bioactive natural products such as flavonoids, isoflavonoids and triterpenes
• Cell wall metabolism

Education:

1986-1991      M.Sc. Biochemistry, Moscow Veterinary Academy, Biological Department, Moscow, Russia  

1996-1997      Undergraduate work, Molecular biology, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia  

1995-1998       Ph.D. Biology, National Research Institute of Veterinary Virology      and Microbiology, Lab of biophysics, Pokrov, Russia 

Selected courses:      

Apr. 2007        Mass Spectrometry, (40 hours), Noble Foundation, Ardmore, OK 

Sep. 2007        Proteomics, (40 hours), Noble Foundation, Ardmore, OK 

Nov. 2008       Grant writers’ seminars & workshops (8 hours), /prof. David C. Morrison/ Ardmore, OK 

Feb. 2009        Phylogenetics course (40 hours), /prof. John P. Huelsenbeck/ Probabilities; Bayes' theorem; Phylogenetic models; Markov chains; Maximum likelihood, Parsimony and Distance methods; PAUP, Mrbayes and PAML software/ Ardmore, OK

Professional Appointments: 

1991-1996       Research assistant, Lab of biophysics, All-Russia Research Institute of Veterinary Virology And Microbiology, Pokrov, Russia 

1998-2000       Research Scientist, Lab of DNA diagnostics and biochip, All-Russia Research Institute for Agricultural Biotechnology, Moscow, Russia 

2000-2002      STA Fellow Researcher, Forage Legume Breeding Laboratory, National Agricultural Research Center for Hokkaido Region, Sapporo, Japan 

2003-2008       Postdoctoral Fellow, Plant Biology Division, The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation  

2009                Research Scientist Plant Biology Division, The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation

Honors and Awards  

1999 Golden Medal and First Prize of All-Russia Achievement Exhibition for Rabies virus PCR diagnostic design   

2000 Gold Medal of National State Exhibition for the Project “Biochip for nucleic acid analysis”

2000 Award of STA fellowship, National Agricultural Research Center for Hokkaido Region, Sapporo, Japan

Membership of Professional Societies

Member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Member of the American Society of Plant Biologists

Language Skills

Fluency in English, Russian

Research articles:

1. Naoumkina, M.A., Modolo L.V., Huhman, D., Urbanczyk-Wochniaka, E., Tang, Y., Sumner, L.W., and Dixon, R.A. Genomic and co-expression analyses predict genes involved in triterpene saponin biosynthesis in Medicago truncatula. Plant physiology in review
2. Farag, M.A., Deavours, B.E., De-Fatima, M.A., Naoumkina, M.A., Dixon, R.A., and Sumner, L.W. Integrated metabolite and transcript profiling identifies mechanisms for the biosynthesis of an aurone phytoalexin in Medicago truncatula cell cultures. Plant Cell in review
3. Naoumkina, M.A., He, XZ., and Dixon, R.A. Elicitor-induced transcription factors for metabolic reprogramming of secondary metabolism in Medicago truncatula. BMC Plant Biology 2008 Dec 22;8(1):132. 
4. *Naoumkina, M., *Vaghchhipawala, S., Tang, Y., Ben, Y., Powell, R. and Dixon, R.A. Metabolic and genetic perturbations accompany the modification of galactomannan in seeds of Medicago truncatula expressing mannan synthase from guar (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba L.). Plant Biotechnology Journal 2008 Aug;6(6):619-31 (* equal contribution)
5. Naoumkina, M.A. and Dixon, R.A.  Subcellular Localization of Flavonoid Natural Products - A Signaling Function? Plant Signaling & Behavior, 2008, 3(8) Print ISSN: 1559-2316; Online ISSN: 1559-2324
6. Naoumkina M., Farag M.A., Sumner L.W., Tang Y., Liu C.J., Dixon R.A. Different mechanisms for phytoalexin induction by pathogen and wound signals in Medicago truncatula. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 Nov 13;104(46):17909-15.
7. Naoumkina, M., Torres-Jerez, I., Allen, S., He, J., Zhao, P., Dixon, R.A. and May, G.D. (2007). Analysis of cDNA libraries from developing seeds of guar (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba (L.) Taub) BMC Plant Biology (23 Nov), 7:62
8. Modolo, L., Blount, J.W., Achnine, L., Naoumkina, M.A., Wang, X. and Dixon, R.A. (2007) A functional genomics approach to (iso)flavonoid glycosylation in the model legume Medicago truncatula. Plant Molecular Biology, 64, 499-518. 
9. Deavours, B.E., Liu, C.-J., Naoumkina, M.A., Tang, Y., Farag, M.A., Sumner, L.W., Noel, J.P. and Dixon, R.A. (2006). Functional analysis of members of the isoflavone and isoflavanone O-methyltransferase enzyme families from the model legume Medicago truncatula. Plant Molecular Biology, 62(4-5):715-33.
10. Suzuki, H., Reddy, S., Naoumkina, M.A., Aziz, N., May, G., Huhman, D., Sumner, L., Blount, J., Mendes, P., Dixon, R.A. (2005) Methyl jasmonate and yeast elicitor induce differential genetic and metabolic re-programming in cell suspension cultures of the model legume Medicago truncatula. Planta, 220:698-707. 
11. Ivashuta, S., Naumkina, M.A., Gau, M., Uchiyama, K., Isobe, S., Mizukami, Y., Shimamoto, Y. (2002) Genotype-dependent transcriptional activation of novel repetitive elements during cold acclimation of alfalfa (Medicago sativa). Plant J. Sep; 31(5):615-627. 
12. Zabrodina, M., Khodoun, M., Naumkina, M.A., Khavkin, E. (2000) NBS and LRR homologies of genes of vertical resistance to fungi diseases of annual and perennial rye (Secale L), Doclady RASHN, 2000, vol. 3, p 16-18, in Russian.  

Book chapter:

Dixon, R.A., Achnine, L., Deavours, B.E. and Naoumkina, M.A. (2006). Metabolomics and gene identification in plant natural product pathways. In: Biotechnology in Agriculture and Forestry, “Plant Metabolomics”, edited by K. Saito, R. A. Dixon and L. Willmitzer, Springer, pp 243-259.