Larisa is originally from Wisconsin, and she graduated from UW Madison. She received her PhD in 2003 from the University of Arizona in Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, where she worked in the lab of Dr. Garth Powis studying mitochondrial redox homeostasis. Larisa stayed west and did postdoctoral training with Donna Peehl in the Urology Dept at Stanford University College of Medicine. It was during her postdoc that she first focused on vitamin D, prostate cancer, and patient-derived models, which remains the focus of her research today. In 2006, Larisa moved to the Department of Pathology at UIC, where she is currently a full Professor. Her current research projects remain centered around prostate cancer and patient-derived models and include the regulation of non-coding RNAs, inflammation, and androgen homeostasis by vitamin D, which she will present at this meeting.