Research Areas

Micro-environment mediated regulation of Hematopoietic Stem Cells

Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) form an important component of bone marrow microenvironment. These cells respond to the external cues and modulate the fate of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). Extra-cellular vesicles (EVs) comprising of micro-vesicles and exosomes form a very important medium through which the stromal cells communicate with the stem cells. Our aim is to examine the molecular composition of EVs collected from MSCs treated with specific signaling modifiers like AKT inhibitors, ERK inhibitors, NO donors, hypoxia-inducing agents and simultaneously examine the effect of these EVs on the functionality of the HSCs. Since EVs can be effectively cryopreserved, they can be stored as "ready-to-use" reagents for application in clinical transplantations.

Neuronal regeneration using Extracellular Vesicles derived from Mesenchymal Stromal Cells

Neurodegenerative diseases are associated with neuronal loss and neural cell death associated with formation of protein aggregates. A long asymptomatic period before disease manifestation, difficulty in diagnosis, lack of validated animal models, and insufficient understanding of the cause and mechanism are major challenges to study neurodegenerative diseases. Our hypothesis is that EVs collected from mesenchymal stromal cell (MSCs) primed with neurotropic factors would possess neuro regenerative properties. Hence our primary aim is to develop a valid in vitro neurodegenerative model (using neuroblastoma cell line Neuro2a) to examine whether EVs secreted by MSCs primed towards neuronal lineage would rescue the Neuro2a cells from degeneration. A byline would be to elucidate the role of autophagy in neuro regeneration.

Type 2 Diabetes and associated risk factors

The laboratory focuses on understanding the association of different risk factors with Type 2 diabetes. This laboratory is well equipped to perform different techniques related to clinical biochemistry, hematology and immunology. Ongoing projects involve effect of plant extracts on different clinical conditions and association of oxidative stress and inflammation with ageing and vitamin D deficiency in middle-aged type 2 diabetics.

One of the interests in this area is biochemical and molecular characterization of probiotic and industrially important properties of Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB). Such experiments are performed on the strains obtained from the standard culture collections as well as those isolated in house from various food products. In addition, improvement in certain important features of LAB is also being sought through metabolic engineering as well as adaptive laboratory evolution. These projects are further empowered by genome sequencing and RNA-seq analyses. In a couple of other projects, plant and bacterial β-glucosidases are being characterized by recombinant expression in E. coli for their potential of improving the flavor of fruit products.

Research laboratory is focused on biotransformation of Xenobiotics. In vitro methods are developed to understand the metabolic pathways for pharmaceutical drugs, nanomedicine and environmental pollutants. Analytical technologies are utilized to characterize the structure of metabolites.

Bacterial communication and Host-pathogen interactions

The laboratory focuses on understanding the mechanisms underlying the interspecies bacterial quorum sensing and its role in the regulation of virulence phenotypes, thereby providing a prospective for better therapeutics in order to disable the pathogenesis and identify novel drug targets to combat the antimicrobial resistance.

The BSL-II laboratory is well equipped to perform advanced molecular biology techniques involving cell culture, gene manipulation and transcriptome analysis. Ongoing projects involve identification of molecular mechanisms of interspecies bacterial communication on virulence of Streptococcus pyogenes, understanding the host-pathogen interaction in Neisseria meningitidis and Listeria monocytogenes.

Cellular signalling and molecular cross talks due to glycation amplifies inflammation, microvascular dysfunction and further leads to complications such as nephropathy, cardiovascular diseases. The research interest of the lab is to understand the biochemical pathways of glycation modifications in diabetes and associated secondary complications.

The research may form the basis for the identification of molecular targets for therapeutic treatment or prevention. Another research area of the group is to evaluate the drugs from complementary and alternative therapies and confirm their mechanism of action in control of the diseases.

The emergence of antibiotic resistance, particularly against most pathogenic bacteria, has become a critical issue in modern medicine. The concern that humankind is re-entering the "pre-antibiotic" era has become incredibly concerning, and the development of alternative treatments has become one of the highest priorities for biotechnology.

Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria and are common in the environment. They have great potential in the development of antibiotic therapy. Even though phage therapy has been available for over a century, there are now innovative applications. The laboratory aims to find effective phages against Multi-Drug Resistant (MDR) bacterial strains isolated from human and animal cases. We focus on identifying and comprehending these efficient phages against E. coli and Salmonella spp. Phages that are most active, non-harmful for humans, and effective in killing both planktonic and non-planktonic bacteria are identified. Certain might be useful in the treatment of individuals infected with these MDR bacteria, bio-control application and animals.

Another area of our group is the identification, characterization, and development of preventative strategies against viruses such as New Castle Disease virus and Avian Adenoviruses in commercial birds. We are attempting to create efficient antivirals and vaccines for these agents. We are trying to gather as much information as possible through environmental surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in sewage water systems and identifying for the prediction of human cases in a specific area and variants identification. The laboratory has everything needed to grow viruses in cell culture, embryonated chicken eggs, and experimental animals. The virology laboratory is affiliated with a centralized experimental animal facility registered with the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Animal Experiments (CPCSEA). The laboratory is equipped and maintained following all of the CPCSEA's ethical guidelines, rules and regulations.

Complex diseases are influenced by a combination of genetic and environmental factors. The emergence of these diseases is therefore difficult to predict. The goal of our lab is to identify markers for diagnosis / prognosis of complex diseases and to provide therapeutic targets using multi-omics data analysis.

The lab holds expertise in areas of genomics and proteomics. The technical expertise of the lab within the genomics field extends to RNA-Sequencing and ChIP-Sequencing data analysis for identification of differentially expressed / alternatively spliced transcripts and for protein-DNA interaction. Genomics expertise also extends to Exome-Sequencing analysis for germline variants and transcriptome assembly and annotation. Proteomics analysis is currently limited to label free quantitation (LFQ). Expertise in bioinformatics is currently limited to database management.

The MACD Lab is keen to provide its services in the form of academic collaborations with joint grant applications as well as consultancy services. The general guidelines followed by  us can be found here. 

Fungi display enormous diversity in their size, shape and intracellular organization, associated with different biochemical and molecular processes, that can be explored for various biotechnological applications. The molecular mycology group at SSBS is focused on understanding the molecular basis of fungal morphogenesis for different applications in healthcare, industrial production of metabolites and biopolymers. For instance, the morphological modelling of the fungus Aspergillus niger is being attempted for the production of citric acid. In another project, molecular switches, such as glutamate dehydrogenases, ornithine decarboxylase, chitin synthases, chitin deacetylases etc., regulating fungal morphogenesis, are being explored as antifungal drug targets. For this, target-specific tests for high-throughput screening of antifungal molecules are being developed. The possible link between fungal morphogenesis and tumor cell formation is also being investigated.

The other research interests are:

• Bioprospecting of entomopathogenic fungi to produce secondary metabolites for healthcare applications
• Development of yeasts and filamentous fungal platforms for the expression of eukaryotic proteins
• Production of recombinant chitin deacetylase to obtain highly deacetylated chitosan for healthcare applications
• Structural studies of fungal glutamate dehydrogenases and chitin synthases