Vitiligo is a depigmentation disorder in which white patches appear on skin due to selective damage of melanin producing cells of the skin called melanocytes. Destruction of melanocytes causes hypo-pigmentation of the hair, skin and other mucosal surfaces. Depending on the geographical location within India, the prevalence of vitiligo ranges from 0.09% to 8%, with an average age of onset of symptoms at about 20 years, its occurrence appears to be equal between both genders and its rate of occurrence doesn’t vary according to skin type or race.

Chimeric Antigen Receptor-T cell therapy (CAR-T cell therapy) has demonstrated remarkable success in long-term remission of relapsed or refractory B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL). Very recently, FDA approved the anti-CD19-CAR-T cells developed by Novartis for the treatment of B-ALL. However, this technology has not yet been designed and developed in India. Considering socioeconomic conditions of patients in our country, recently developed CAR-T-cell therapy will be unaffordable to majority of our patients.

Cancer stem like cells are a heterogeneous population that have been identified in several cancers. They are considered to be the seeds through which cancer progresses and survives in the body. Since these cells are very different from the bulk population in the tumour, they also show differential behavior towards various treatment options.

High mortality in cancer is attributed to cancer metastasis–the multi-stage process which includes invasion of tumor cells through the basement membrane, entry into blood vasculature, entry into secondary organ and its colonisation. Understanding mechanisms of cancer invasion represents one of the major research directions of our group. For this we combine traditional cell and molecular biology with biophysics and computational biology. We are currently working on the following aspects:

In clinical practice, sutures, staples and clips are widely used as conventional wound closure devices. These devices have to be administered invasively, thus leading to discomfort to the patients also poses increase risk of microbial infestation at the wound site and take a long time to repair. To minimise and/ or eliminate the high chances of infection and transmission of blood-borne diseases associated with suturing, tissue adhesives have garnered importance in tissue repair as sealants.

Mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs) are pluripotent stem cells capable of differentiating into many cell types based on the growth factors and physical cues provided by the micro- environment. These biophysical cues of the substrate are found to regulate cellular processes ranging from cell division to cell differentiation. Subtle changes in bio-chemical or physical parameters of the micro-environment are found to trigger lineage specific differentiation.

Microtubules are filaments formed by the polymerisation of tubulin proteins. Microtubules play a crucial role in many important cellular processes such as maintaining cell shape, intracellular transport, cell motility and cell division. During cell division, genetic material is divided into two daughter cells with the help of microtubules. Cancer begins as over proliferation/uncontrolled division of cells.

Cell is the basic unit of life and can be often compared to a city. Cities have power plants, cells have mitochondria. Cities have factories, cells have ribozymes and endoplasmic reticulum. Cities have depots and ware houses while cells have Golgi bodies. One of the most important aspects of the city without which it cannot sustain its operation is the transportation system i.e. roads, rails, trains and vehicles. Cells have a transportation system whereby microtubules and actin filaments form a network of roads.

The human body is bordered by several cellular barriers that define the frontier between the internal milieu and the external non-sterile environment. In addition to their physiological roles, these host barriers provide both physical and immune defense against microbial infection. Yet, many pathogens have evolved elaborate strategies to target these lines of defense, resulting in disruption of barrier integrity and dissemination into deeper tissues.

Molecular enzymology and fungal metabolic regulation form the core strengths of our research. An emerging approach to understand and exploit metabolic processes is metabolic / pathway engineering. This implies a targeted and purposeful manipulation of the capabilities of an organism. Our group is pursuing this broad research objective with the acidogenic metabolism of Aspergillus niger (A.