RESEARCH & DISCOVERIES

Current Areas of Study

Mechanobactericidal Nanostars for wound healing applications

Gold nanostars, an upcoming class of nanoparticles has a structure composed of characteristic core and several branches. Due to the presence of branch tips, they work as promising plasmonic agents for Surface enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) and Localized Surface Plasmon Resonances (LSPR). They are an efficient agent for photothermal therapy and promote catalytic activities. With the ongoing advancements in the surface morphology of Gold nanostars, their spike sharpness can be chemically tuned to achieve specific spike lengths. Exploiting the factor of chemical tunability, our lab has explored the mechanical bacterial lysis aspect of these nanostructures. As multidrug resistance with long term hospitalizations and broadband antibiotic therapy has become a challenge to tackle for the clinicians worldwide, we have explored the mechano-bactericidal effect of Gold nanostars. Further, we are also interested in exploring the microbial cell lysis through Gold nanostarsas an analytical platform for biomolecule identification and using them as colorimetric sensors for bacterial load.

Nanomaterials for sensing and photoablation

Food-borne pathogens have a huge impact on food safety and also affect human health and economy. Nanotechnology based biosensors represent a promising domain for food borne bacteria detection. Enhanced signal-to-noise ratios and reduced response time are the main advantages of nanomaterials. Further our lab is utilizing glycans and aptamers as specific biorecognition elements. These biorecognition elements are conjugated onto nanomaterials and are being used for the development of detection platforms such as microarray, microfluidic device, cotton swab based portable assays. Along with detection of different bacteria we are also interested in development of novel nanoprobe for photothermal ablation of bacteria by PDT and PTT. With in-house facilities we have synthesized aptamers by the systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX) approach against various bacterial strains, i.e., E.coli, S. typhimurium, S.aureus, C.perfringens. Now we are diversifying our protocols towards synthesis of aptamers against pesticides to detect water and soil contamination

Targeted therapeutics for nutritional and metabolic disorders

Two major health issues that are major concerns in India are iron deficiency anemia and type 2 diabetes mellitus. These are long term metabolic/lifestyle disorders and are affecting a large fraction of Indian population. Our lab is working towards the identification and execution of different therapeutic approaches for these major disorders through targeted biomaterials. We explore the interface of biology and chemistry for the developing hydrogel and exosome based therapeutic biomaterials. Hydrogels have excellent pH sensitivity and can swell upto multiple folds at favorable pH. This pH sensitivity and sustained release property of hydorgels is being explored by our lab for targeted therapeutics of iron deficiency anemia. Further exosome are a class of biological vesicles that contain multiple unexplored therapeutic molecules. We are analyzing the therapeutic potential of exosomes on type 2 diabetes mellitus.