Lena Smirnova is Research Assiciate at Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing at Bloomberg Schoool of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University. The main focus of her research is developmental neurotoxicty and the role of microRNA in gene-environmental interactions in neurodevelopment and neurodegeneration. From 2007 until 2012 she was a PostDoc at Federal Institute of Risk Assessment, Berlin, Germany, where she coordinated a pre-validation study in the field of inhalation toxicology in parallel to her reserach in neurotoxicology. She received her PhD in Neuroscience in 2007 in Charite Free University, Berlin Germany in 2007. The main focus of her research was microRNA in neural development and stem cell specification. Lena Smirnova graduated from Internation Sakharov Environmental Universty, MInsk, Belarus in 2002. Her major subject was Radiobiology and Environmental Medicine.