Elena Ezhkova

Elena Ezhkova is a Professor in the Departments of Cell, Developmental & Regenerative Biology and Dermatology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, affiliated with the Black Family Stem Cell Institute. Her research focuses on epigenetic regulation of epithelial stem cells during development, regeneration, and disease. Dr. Ezhkova earned her PhD from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and completed postdoctoral training at the Rockefeller University under Elaine Fuchs. She leads a lab investigating skin stem cell biology, cancer, and mechanosensation, with ongoing projects on Merkel cell biology and epigenetic mechanisms in skin diseases.

Research interests include: 1) Epigenetic control of hair follicle stem cell quiescence and activation, 2) Mechanisms of Merkel cell development and regeneration, 3) Epigenetic drivers of skin cancers (SCC, Merkel cell carcinoma, melanoma), and 4) Interactions between sensory neurons and touch dome structures. Key findings include identifying FGFR2's role in Merkel cell specification and discovering Polycomb complex functions in epidermal patterning.

Notable awards include the Ellison Foundation New Scholar in Aging (2013) and NIH K99/R00 Award (2010). The lab actively recruits graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, with current members including PhD candidates Meagan Branch and Madison Weber, and postdocs Meng-Yen Li and Pooja Flora. Alumni hold positions at Harvard, Ben-Gurion University, and Nature journals.

Lab locations: Atran Berg Laboratory Building, 1428 Madison Ave, New York. Active collaborations include the Skin Biology and Diseases Resource-based Center at Mount Sinai. Current research tools include single-cell transcriptomics, mouse models, and CRISPR-based epigenetic editing.