Presenting Author
Duke University
I have been long interested in studying the fundamental biological mechanisms governing disease pathogenesis in humans. This involving the cellular aspects of pathological processes, posttranscriptional regulation and underlying molecular mechanisms. Equipped with training in proteomics, cell culture, biochemical and molecular biology methods I embarked upon a research career in the field of unexplained infertility which causes a failure of embryonic implantation and lack of pregnancy. I was involved in identifying the expression pattern of uterine secretory and membrane bound proteins in fertile and infertile women. My study identified some novel factors with tremendous potential to emerge as specific bio-markers of endometrial differentiation. The work resulted in 3 publications in high impact factor journals in Reproductive Biology. For my postdoc I was involved in understanding the cellular mechanisms underlying all-trans-retinal mediated inflammation and cellular death in several mice models of visual impairment. These mice mimic several features of Stargardt disease and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and offer an excellent model to better understand the pathogenesis of photoreceptor loss and retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE) cell death occurring in these diseases. Using a systems biology approach, I employed RNASeq to identify the early transcriptional signatures induced after light induced retinal degeneration in Abca4-/-Rdh8-/- mice. We identified several novel candidates playing key roles in the early progression of these debilitating blinding diseases. One first author and 3 co-author publications have resulted from this work. At present I am involved in getting new insights into the transcriptional mis-regulation involved during retinal degeneration besides identifying novel biomarker candidates, which have potential to be attractive drug targets for several retinal degenerative disorders including AMD.