Yuri Nikiforov

Dr. Nikiforov and his team’s discoveries and scientific research of the field of genetics of thyroid cancer during almost three decades since the 1990s have led to the creation of genetic molecular test for thyroid nodules, which was first applied to patient care in 2007, It has been evolved and expanded since then. The test was created by Dr. Nikiforov and his wife, Dr. Marina Nikiforova, at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Dr. Marina Nikiforova has led clinical implementation of the test. (9, 20, 23, 24, 15) The test allows doctors to access and analyze the genetic material of questionable thyroid nodules, which are not reliably identified via traditional fine needle biopsies, without surgically removing them. The test, performed via fine needle, distinguishes between benign and cancerous thyroid nodules using a very small sample of cells. (10, 11, 12, 13)

The U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH), a subsidiary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that serves as the nation's medical research agency, has been funding Dr. Nikiforov's research since year 2000. Dr. Nikiforov, an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, has been working at the University of Pittsburgh since 2006. As of 2020, he is a professor of pathology at the University of Pittsburgh and director of the Division of Molecular & Genomic Pathology. Together with his team, he has authored about 200 research articles and book chapters. His work has been published by publications including Science, Cell, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the US, and JAMA Oncology. He is a senior editor of the textbook Diagnostic Pathology and Molecular Genetics of the Thyroid.

At the time of the Chernobyl nuclear explosion on April 26, 1986, Dr. Nikiforov lived in Minsk, capital of Belarus, just about 200 miles from the site of the catastrophe. Following the Chernobyl disaster, which is now known as the world's worst nuclear plant explosion in history, Dr. Nikiforov noticed an increase in pediatric thyroid cancer by 1990, which was unheard of in global health care at the time. He focused his research on that specific area, helping to prove over time that the cancer was caused by the radioactive isotope Iodine-131, vast quantities of which was released due to the plant explosion. Millions of children in the regions of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia around Chernobyl breathed it in, and consumed it with milk, fruits and vegetables as the Soviet government withheld information about the catastrophe from both its own people and the international community for several days following the explosion and collapse of the plant's fourth reactor on April 26, 1986. Children received critical doses of the isotope within a month after the explosion. The Soviet government could have prevented most of the thyroid cancer cases following the catastrophe had it admitted the magnitude of the disaster, distributed potassium iodide pills in the most radiation-contaminated regions, and warned against consuming milk, fruits and vegetables contaminated with radioactivity. In Kiev, radiation increased more than 100-fold following the Chernobyl explosion. Potassium iodine saturates the thyroid gland with safe iodine and protects it against radioactive iodine. Incidence of pediatric thyroid cancer rose 200-fold in Belarus by 1994 from 1985 because of the radiation release following the explosion and fire at the nuclear plant. In some parts of the country, the cancer rate rose 2,000-fold. Prior to the Chernobyl catastrophe, one in 2 million children was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, the same as in Great Britain. That statistics increased to 1 in 10,000 children by 1994, according to WHO. However, in some parts of Belarus the rate was even higher, at 1 in 1,000 children. In northern regions of Ukraine that neighbor Chernobyl pediatric thyroid cancer rates increased 100-fold by 1994 from 1985.

Dr. Yuri Nikiforov (born Юрий Ефимович Никифоров, Sept. 12, 1962, Minsk, Belarus, USSR) is an American scientist who revolutionized the understanding of thyroid cancer, most recently winning a two-year battle in which the World Health Organization has agreed in 2017 to reclassify non-invasive thyroid tumors to non-cancerogenic liaisons. Those tumors typically have some, but not all, characteristics of cancer. The WHO has agreed to change the term for the tumors from Encapsulated Follicular Variant of Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma to Noninvasive Follicular Thyroid Neoplasm With Papillary-like Nuclear Features, or NIFTP. About 45,000 people a year are diagnosed with NIFTP in the world. The decision led to a change in protocol of medical treatment, which no longer required removal of the whole thyroid gland from such patients as well as ended the use of radioactive iodine, extending their life expectancy and quality of life. The patients still undergo surgery, in which their thyroid tumors are removed, typically with half, but not all, of the thyroid gland.

Dr. Nikiforov graduated from the Minsk Medical Institute in Belarus in 1985 with honors and received his doctoral degree. Dr. Nikiforov was invited to continue his work in the United States following his groundbreaking research into the epidemic of pediatric thyroid cancer after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant catastrophe in Ukraine. He moved to the U.S. in 1993 together with his wife and fellow scientist Marina Nikiforova (Марина Николаевна Никифорова, born April 23, 1961 in Piatigorsk, Russia) and their two children. The family resided in Cincinnati, OH, before moving to Pittsburgh, PA, in 2006. Upon arriving in the United States, Dr. Nikiforov worked at the Rhode Island Hospital, Brown University, in Providence, RI, Cedar-Cinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, and University of Cincinnati, OH, where he completed his post-doctoral training in thyroid cancer genetics and focused his research on the genetics and pathology of thyroid cancer. He has received international acclaim for the discovery of several novel types of chromosomal rearrangements in thyroid cancer, which also linked them to exposure to ionizing radiation. He has discovered, detailed and scientifically described the exact mechanisms of radiation damage to human DNA on a molecular basis and explained why that damage causes cancer. His research interests evolved over time to include molecular diagnostic of thyroid and other types of cancer.