Dr. Alex Karasev

Dr. Alexander V. Karasev was born and raised in the former USSR, where he completed his undergraduate studies at the Moscow Academy of Veterinary Medicine in 1979. He obtained a PhD from Moscow State University in 1985 and then worked as a researcher in the Institute of Microbiology in Moscow, focusing on the molecular biology of several plant viruses infecting vegetables. Karasev moved to the United States in 1992 and joined Bill Dawson’s lab as a post-doctoral associate to work on citrus tristeza virus (CTV) and other closteroviruses—first at the University of California, Riverside (1992–1993) and later at the University of Florida as an assistant in plant virology (1994–1998). In 1998, Karasev accepted an assistant professor position at Thomas Jefferson University and developed a research program on the use of plant viruses as vectors for the production of biomedicals in plants. In 2006, he moved to the Department of Entomology, Plant Pathology, and Nematology at the University of Idaho (UI) as an assistant professor; he advanced to associate professor in 2011 and to full professor in 2014. Karasev is an internationally recognized authority in the field of plant virology and renowned for his original research on closteroviruses and potyviruses, two groups of economically important plant viruses. Since joining the University of Idaho in 2006, Karasev has developed an internationally renowned program in plant virology focused on viruses of potato, legumes, and other crops of importance in the Pacific Northwest.