Dr. Konstantinov received a Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1985 and a Doctorate in Biological Sciences in 1987 from Moscow State University in Russia. He is currently chief of laboratory at the A.N. Belozersky Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology, Moscow Lomonosov State University. He has received numerous Presidential and State Stipend Awards from the Russian government. In 2002 he was named a full adjunct professor of the Institute of Chemical and Biological Technology of the Lisbon New University in Portugal, and in 2003 he was recognized as one of the most highly cited Russian scientists for publications since 1985. In 2008 he won the A.N. Bakh Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which is awarded triennially to a leading biochemist in Russia. This is his second HHMI International Research Scholar award.

Alexander Konstantinov aims to elucidate the molecular mechanism by which downhill electron transfer through terminal respiratory oxidases (reduction of dioxygen to water) is coupled to uphill electrogenic translocation of protons across the membrane. The lab plans to study time-resolved intraprotein movement of protons along the protonic channels in mitochondrial and bacterial oxidases and investigate the effects of critical amino acid residue replacements in the protonic channels on dynamics of electrogenic proton transfer through the enzyme.