Rate My Professor Illia Droujinine

Ilia Droujinine is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine at The Scripps Research Institute. He earned his Ph.D. in Biological and Biomedical Sciences from Harvard University in 2020, conducting his doctoral research in the laboratory of Norbert Perrimon from 2012 to 2020, and a B.Sc. in Biochemistry from the University of Waterloo, where he received the Alumni Gold Medal. Following his Ph.D., Droujinine joined Scripps Research as a Scripps Research Fellow and Principal Investigator in 2020, advancing to Assistant Professor.

Droujinine's research centers on interorgan communication, investigating the secreted proteins that form signaling networks between organs and how these networks dysregulate in diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, aging-related conditions, and digestive disorders. His laboratory utilizes pioneering genetic tools, including tissue-specific expression of the engineered biotin ligase BirA*G3 in Drosophila and mouse models, to label, track, and quantify interorgan protein trafficking via quantitative mass spectrometry proteomics. Notable achievements include the development of a genetic model for in vivo proximity labeling of the mammalian secretome, published in Open Biology in 2022, and comprehensive proteomics of tissue-specific protein secretion in Nature Communications in 2021. Earlier work includes mapping interorgan pathways in Drosophila physiology in Developmental Cell in 2016. His research has garnered over 1,300 citations on Google Scholar and interests span physiology, cell biology, developmental biology, and genetics. Droujinine has secured major funding, including the NIH Maximizing Investigators' Research Award (MIRA) of $3.2 million over five years in 2024, a $1.3 million American Diabetes Association grant in 2025, the AGA Research Scholar Award in 2023, Glenn Foundation for Medical Research and AFAR Grants for Junior Faculty in 2022, the Ellen Browning Scripps Foundation Award, the Herbert Tabor Young Investigator Award from the Journal of Biological Chemistry and American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and the Harvard Medical School Innovation Grant Program Research Award. He co-directs the Cell Biology course in the Scripps Research graduate program.