Visiting scientist from Ukraine works with community group (07/04/99)

Visiting scientist from Ukraine works with community group

by Bohdan Z. Malaniak

LOS ANGELES - Prof. Rostyslav Stoika's first step of his journey to Los Angeles began in May 1991, when Ukraine was still under Soviet rule.

A Los Angeles-based scientist, Paul Micevich, Ph.D., a professor at the department of neurobiology at the UCLA School of Medicine, traveled to Ukraine, where his parents were born, for the first time. It was suggested that Dr. Micevich visit with Dr. Stoika, in-as-much as they both had an interest in biology, and Dr. Stoika was fluent in English. They met in Moscow because, at that time, everything went through Moscow, including direct flights.

Shortly after Dr. Micevich returned to Los Angeles, he invited Dr. Stoika to the UCLA School of Medicine as a visiting scientist in the department of neuro-endocrinology for the first six months of 1994. While in Los Angeles, Prof. Stoika met with the leadership and Friends of the California Association to Aid Ukraine (CAAU).

Dr. Stoika, who was born in Uzhorod, lives with his wife, Ariana Ilkiv-Stoika, and their daughter, Bohdanna, in Lviv. Bohdanna recently completed her medical studies at Lviv Medical University.

Dr. Stoiko also studied in Lviv and in 1993, he completed his studies by earning a doctorate of biological sciences from the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NANU) in Kyiv. He is the director of the division and chief of the department at the A.V. Palladin Institute of Biochemistry, NANU in Lviv.

He also serves on numerous editorial boards and teaches at the department of biochemistry of Lviv State University and the department of biology at Lviv's Medical University. Dr. Stoika is a frequent lecturer and presenter at international conferences, and has over 70 publications to his credit.

In 1986, he received the NANU A.V. Palladin Medal and Prize in Biochemistry. He has been involved in more than half a dozen research projects, several of which were funded by American and Swedish research organizations.

When he returned to Ukraine from his six-month excursion in Los Angeles, Dr. Stoika worked with Arkadi Mulak, chairman of the board of CAAU. Through CAAU resources and encouragement, Dr. Stoika formed the West Ukraine Biomedical Research Center. The center annually selects and awards grants to young researchers in order to assist their scientific investigations.

With the help of Mr. Mulak and Dr. Ihor Masnyk of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Washington, Dr. Stoika successfully obtained funding from NCI to pursue his scientific interests. Dr. Stoika and CAAU played a major role in the publishing of the Ukrainian-language edition of the journal of Scientific American (Svit Nauky).

In 1996, another collaborative project was developed by Dr. Stoika and CAAU - the organization of the First Ukrainian-Polish Scientific Conference, in Lviv, which honored the world renowned professor Jakub Karol Parnas (1884-1949), biochemist and founder of schools of biochemistry in Ukraine and Poland.

Dr. Stoika also played a major role as the Ukrainian co-organizer for the second Parnas conference, hosted by the Medical University of Gdansk, Poland, in September 1998. The third Parnas conference is scheduled to take place in the year 2000, in Kyiv.

CAAU was successful in obtaining a visiting researcher position from May 1999 to April 2000 for Dr. Stoika with the Burns & Allen Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Dr. Stoika will be woking with scientists at the research institute, particularly with Dr. Shlomo Melmed, senior vice president of academic affairs and director of the research institute.

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