Skin Immunology
In our Lab we are interested to study keratinocytes and melanocytes biology in various skin disease like vitiligo, atopic dermatitis and psoriasis. Vitiligo is an idiopathic depigmentation disorder-affecting people of all ages and genders worldwide. Although vitiligo is not a life-threating disorder, vitiligo patients experience enormous social stigmatism, rejection from the society, bullying, unwanted attention and negative comments; all of these experiences leads to tremendous stress, which may further aggravate the disease severity. While dysfunctional autoimmune-activation is believed to be the most accepted mechanism of initiation and progression of vitiligo, the roles of immune-effector mechanisms occurring in the skin remains elusive. We in our lab interested to examine the roles of immune cells and cytokines on keratinocytes and melanocytes biology in context to vitiligo, AD and psoriasis parthenogenesis.
T cell Lymphoma
T-cell lymphoma (TCL) represents a diverse group of non-Hodgkin lymphomas derived from mature malignant T cell with either nodal or extranodal involvement. TCL is broadly classified into peripheral T cell lymphoma (PTCL) and cutaneous T cell lymphoma (CTCL). We are trying to identify distinct immune features which might be useful in developing the robust therapy and understanding the rationale of dysregulation in T cells phenotype in these malignancies. With this project, we aim to examine the blood T cell profile of different subsets of T cell lymphoma and healthy subjects. Identifying novel immune hallmarks will be helpful in developing better therapy for T cell lymphoma patients and more importantly, we wish to identify effective therapeutic bio-markers for developing the robust therapy of this difficult to treat malignancies.
CAR-T cell technology development
We developed a novel humanized anti-CD19 CAR with a favorable balance of efficacy to toxicity. Our study provides strong preclinical and ex vivo evidence for the development of a novel humanized anti-CD19 CAR with potent anti-tumor activity and low cytokine production that confers a favorable efficacy and toxicity profile. Several clinical trials utilizing the h1CAR19-8BBζ-T cells for CD19 positive malignancies, including r/r B-ALL and DLBCL, are planned. In addition, the capacity building (infrastructure and trained personnel) in low resource settings like India with over 30,000 patients of CD19 positive malignancies will be beneficial in bringing CAR-T cell therapy to the majority of the patients where the toxicity of CAR-T therapy limits its applicability.