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| After getting my medical degree, I
worked for a year as a resident medical officer in a Primary Health Care setting
in India. It was an enriching experience with the satisfaction of caring for and
treating the sick and the needy. But while I was tackling the diseases at the
individual and community level, I was constantly startled by the recurring
realization that knowing the disease and understanding it at a molecular level
would be the best way to substantiate and consolidate my knowledge base and be
able to contribute to the field. |
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The Department of Pathology here at UAB with its invigorating research
ambience happened to be the best place for me
to embark on this mid-career
shift from
the clinical sciences to the basic sciences.
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Hometown:
Nashik,
India
Undergraduate/Masters Institution:
Byramjee
Jeejeebhoy Medical College
Pune, India
General Research
Interests:
Apoptosis
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| Cholangiocarcinoma is a highly lethal tumor
arising from biliary epithelium. Various studies have shown the importance of
Fas death receptor in the prognosis of this tumor.
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I am currently researching Fas mediated apoptosis signaling in
Cholangiocarcinoma tumor model. |
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We have established two unique
Cholangiocarcinoma cell lines, Fas high and Fas low, based on the surface
expression of Fas receptors. Our lab has reported a novel role for Calmodulin
(CaM), a Ca++ regulated cytoplasmic protein, in Fas mediated death signaling by
showing that CaM antagonists like TFP are able to induce apoptosis in Fas high
cells but not in Fas low cells. Now we have observed that the expression of
cellular FLICE like inhibitory protein (c-FLIP), a structural homologue and
inhibitor of caspase 8, is increased in Fas low cholangiocarcinoma
cells.
We believe that c-FLIP could be an important switch in deciding
the sensitivity of Cholangiocarcinoma cells to Fas mediated apoptosis as the
activity of c-FLIP seems to increase in response to activation of Fas-induced
pathway. I am currently working on further characterizing the role of Calmodulin
and c-FLIP in this signaling pathway. |
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