[Biography] :
I completed my Bachelors degree in Biochemistry from Daulat Ram College (Delhi University) in 1996. I was fortunate to get admission as an Integrated PhD (Biological Sciences) student at Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. I completed by PhD under the guidance of Dr. Sandhya S. Visweswariah at the Department of Molecular Reproduction, Development and Genetics (MRDG). My PhD research work revolved around cGMP signaling pathways responsible for travellers’ diarrhea, specifically looking at the role of a Role of a cGMP binding-cGMP-specific phosphodiesterase (PDE5) in regulating cGMP signaling. After completing my PhD, I joined Dr. Jan Christian’s laboratory at the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR, USA. I was specifically looking at how differential cleavage of the morphogen Bone Morphogenetic Protein 4 (and its ortholog decapentaplegic in drosophila) regulates the ability of the protein to act as a long vs short range signaling molecule. My PhD and postdoctoral training was in cell biology, biochemistry and molecular biology.
I joined the Pediatric Biology Center (PBC) at Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI) in September, 2010 as Scientist-D. At PBC, I was the only scientist from a basic biology background, with my other colleagues being clinical scientists. I was getting into research domains for which I had no prior experience. Discussions and collaborations with fellow clinicians opened a whole new world of human research to which I had never been exposed earlier. I started of with projects involving animal studies and cell culture based experiments and have since then come a long way.
Research Interests
Under the overall research theme of Maternal and Child Health my research focus is on childhood diseases and neonatal immune system maturation and activation under different stressors like low birth weight and conditions of probable serious bacterial infections (sepsis). Within the GARBH-Ini cohort I am interested in looking at the effect of infection and inflammation during the antenatal period on fetal growth and preterm birth.
Inflammation and fetal growth :
Pregnancy is a dynamic state where the balance of Th1 and Th2 immune responses changes along the different stages of pregnancy to maintain either a pro or anti-inflammatory status. Inflammation or infectious exposure during pregnancy can lead to disruption of this balance that can influence the growth of the fetus. An infant who is born small can have a modified immune system that responds differentially to subsequent infectious exposures leading to increased susceptibility to infectious morbidity. We have started off by looking at the effects of antenatal inflammation on fetal growth and propose to extend this into looking at infants’ growth and development after birth. The hypothesis is that “an exaggerated inflammatory response during pregnancy is associated with fetal growth restriction”. This study is built in the ongoing pregnancy cohort and we propose to establish a birth cohort subsequently.
In order to address the issue of inflammation and fetal growth we will be profiling the pro and anti-inflammatory cytokines across normal pregnancy as there is no study to report on normative values for inflammatory status in Indian pregnant women. Considering the high pathogen load in our setting it is possible that the basal immune milieu during pregnancy is very different from that reported in the western world. In addition, we will also look at potential markers of fetal growth in maternal serum and associations between inflammation and fetal growth restriction and preterm birth.