Natalia Cheshenko, PhD, is Research Assistant Professor, Pediatrics at our Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Cheshenko is part of our basic science faculty with a focus on virus-host interactions and the development of novel antiviral drugs.

After receiving her Bachelor of Arts in biology from Novosibirsk State University in Novosibirsk, Russia, in 1978, Dr. Cheshenko earned her Master of Science in cytology and genetics from the same university in 1979. She then earned an additional Master of Science in emerging infectious diseases from the State Research Center for Virology and Biotechnology VECTOR in Novosibirsk in 1989. Following this, Dr. Cheshenko received her Doctor of Philosophy in virology and molecular biology training, completing a postdoctoral fellowship in molecular virology at Robert Wood Jonson Medical School in 1998 and a postdoctoral fellowship in gene therapy and virology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 2003.

Dr. Cheshenko studies herpes simplex virus (HSV) entry and has identified novel targets for the development of antiviral drugs. She is also involved in research understanding the HIV-HSV syndemic. Her work has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals and she is an academic editor for PLoS ONE and a reviewer for MDPI journals. In 2019, Dr. Cheshenko received the Young Investigator Award in Cellular Biology from Montefiore Einstein. In 2021, she came in first place for her poster session at Montefiore Einstein’s Pediatrics Research Day.