Dr. Sunil K. Arora received jis PhD (Immunopathology) from the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education & Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh in 1987. He did his post-doctoral training in the Molecular Immunology from the Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Texas USA from 1991 to 1993. He is currently working as Professor of Immunology in the Department of Immunopathology and Head Department of Translational & Regenerative Medicine at PGIMER Chandigarh. He is elected member of the National Academy of Medical Sciences (India). He is Professor-in-charge of the HIV Diagnosis and Disease Monitoring Center at PGI.

His research work focuses on the Immunological aspects of Infectious Diseases mainly Experimental Leishmaniasis, HIV, HCV and Tuberculosis. He has worked on identification and evaluation of protective efficacy of novel vaccine candidates both as prophylactic and therapeutic modes for kala azar using experimentally induced visceral leishmaniasis model. His group has been working for delineating the cellular immune defects in various stages of HIV and HCV infection. More recently he has ventured into the fascinating field of stem cells with special interest in role of cancer stem cells in breast carcinoma and regenerative capacity of mesenchymal stem cells in rheumatoid arthritis. He has 147 scientific publications in the peer-review journals of repute. He received Indo-US Young Investigators award in 1991 and Senior Scientist Oration award in Immunology in 2018.

Recent Publications:

1. Leishmania recombinant antigen modulates macrophage effector function facilitating early clearance of intracellular parasites. Ratna A; Arora SK.Trans Roy Soc Trop Med Hyg 2016 110 (10): 610-619. doi: 10.1093/trstmh/trw068.
2. Differential sensitivity of HIV-1 isolates to inhibition by mannose-binding lectins reveals the heterogeneity of the virus envelope glycosylation. Jan M, Arora SK. JAIDS Jan 2016. P-D12 (DOI:10.1097/01.qai.0000479692.26227.99).
3. Increased expression of negative regulators of cytokine signaling during chronic HIV disease cause functionally exhausted state of Dendritic cells. Sachdeva M, Sharma A and Arora SK. Cytokine 91:118-123; 2017.
4. Mana1-2Man binding anti-HIV lectins enhance the exposure of V2i and V3 crown neutralization epitopes on the V1V2 and V3 hypervariable loops of HIV-1 Envelope. Jan M, Upadhyay C, Sharma A, Hioe CE, Arora SK. AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses- 2017 Mar 21. doi: 10.1089/AID.2016.0262
5. Heterogeneity in the glycan composition on the surface of HIV-1 envelope determines the sensitivity to lectins. Jan M, Upadhyay C, Sharma A, Hioe CE, Arora SK. PLoS One, 2018 Mar 26;13(3):e0194498. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0194498. eCollection 2018

DR. AMIT AWASTHI, Ph. D. Associate Professor (+91-129-2876482) aawasthi [at] thsti [dot] res [dot] in Instructor (Junior Faculty)Harvard Medical School, MA, USA Postdoctoral Training from Brigham and Womens Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA Ph.D in Immunology from National Center for Cell Science, Pune M.Sc. in Biotechnology from Jiwaji University Gwalior

Present Research Interest Present research interest lies in the area of understanding the interplay between effector and regulatory T cells in IBD and gut infection. Understanding T cell differentiation pathways in immunity, autoimmunity and cancer immunity.

For more information about DR.AMIT, visit http://thsti.res.in/profile/Amit-Awasthi.

The primary goal of the lab is to understand major biological processes at the molecular level with the ultimate aim of alleviating human diseases and to explore the diagnostic/prognostic markers along with novel therapeutic targets/agents. Our research focuses on the importance of the bone marrow microenvironment in multiple myeloma, role of T cells in immune evasion by tumour cells in urinary bladder and cervical cancer and to explore the anti-cancer potential of natural products. Our lab also aims to decipher the immunopathogenesis of autoimmune skin disorders (PV and Vitiligo).

For more information visit Professor.Uma Kanga.

Area of Specialization: Allergy, Immunogenetics, Molecular Medicine, Immunodiagnostics, HIV.

Currently working on HLA immunonogenomics of south Indian population groups including tribes and gypsies. Profiling HLA in diseases such as diabetes, cardiac disorders, kidney failure (adults) and nephritic syndrome (pediatric). Operating research projects funded by DRDO and BRNS. As Course Co-ordinator, offering DBT sponsored one year post M.Sc advanced Diploma in Molecular Diagnostics since 2008-2009 (five years program). Extending HLA tissue typing and cross-match services to various hospitals of southern Tamil Nadu for more than two decades. Periodically conducting training workshops for research scholars, teaching staffs from various academic institutions in the area of Immunology and Immunotechnology. Participated in the National Geographic sponsored project ? ?The Journey of Man?.

For more information visit http://www.genomicsmku.org/FAC%20PROF/Balakrishnan.php.

Girdhari Lal of National Centre For Cell Science, Pune, Pune NCCS with expertise in Clinical Immunology, Biotechnology, Cancer Research.

For more information about DR. giridhari visit https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Girdhari_Lal.

Scientist , ICGEB

For more information visit https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kaustuv_Nayak.

Current Research: Immune characterization of HIV-1: The laboratory is focussed on characterizing the immune response elicited in subtype C HIV-1 infected donors and isolation of cross neutralizing human monoclonal antibodies effective against different subtype C and non-subtype C HIV-1. Potent broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) can be useful reagents for passive immunotherapy. Further, the epitopes recognized by these bNAbs can be useful in immunogen design that can be incorporated into vaccines to elicit similar protective neutralizing antibodies in the vaccines.

For more information visit https://www.aiims.edu/en/news/83-biomedical-engineering/431-dr-kalpana-luthra.html.

Dr Geeta Rai, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Banaras Hindu University and trained from Laboratory of Immunology, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Health, Bethesda, MD (USA) as a visiting fellow, in the area of immunogenetics. Her current research program comprises of several independent but synergistically interacting projects with major focus in three domains:
1. Understanding the immunopathogenesis and regulatory mechanisms in autoimmune disease Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE).
2. Defective mechanisms of the innate immunity in low birth weight (LBW) newborns with current focus on NETosis.
3. Stem cell studies to develop better tools for regenerative medicine.
4. Development of Biosimilar/Monoclonal Antibodies.

For more information visit http://geetaraibhu.org/.

Dr Gaurav Sharma is a Scientist in the department of Transplant Immunology and Immunogenetics at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. He is an alumnus of esteemed institutions viz. AIIMS (New Delhi), PGIMER (Chandigarh) and Delhi University, qualified various national level exams and received prestigious National (n=8) and International (n=5) awards as well as research grants (n=4 at present). He has published in international journals (n=15, H index=8, I index=8) and his major scientific contributions: A) involved in identifying several novel mutations and sequences in the distal promoter regions of 58 HLA class I lineages (GenBank A. No. KY427751?KY427809) B) identification of seven TIM-1 (T cell immunoglobulin and mucin family proteins) haplotypes in the North Indians with D3A being the most common haplotype and associated with higher CD4 counts in HIV patients. C) Involved in establishing cost effective in house protocols for post hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) molecular monitoring (chimerism assay)

Besides research; for over last one decade; he has been involved actively and gained expertise in patient services (molecular diagnostics) and teaching and training exercises. At the AIIMS, New Delhi; he has been utilizing multiple advanced high throughput molecular approaches (e.g. Luminex, Sequencing, NGS) for specialized patient services including pre transplant donor selection (HLA analysis) for HSCT and post transplant graft monitoring (STR-PCR based) for various malignant and non malignant hematopoietic conditions. Additionally; he has been consistently involved in teaching/training (short and long term) exercises for PhD/DM/MD/MS/MBBS/MSc students from various specialties including Medical Oncology, Haematology, Pathology, Biotechnology etc.

For more information visit https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=LpD-ZecAAAAJ&hl=en.

Dr. Deepak K. Rathore currently working as Senior Research Scientist in Infection and Immunology group at Translational Health Science and Technology Institute Faridabad, India. He did M.Sc. and PhD. in Biochemistry from Jiwaji University Gwalior, MP and post-doctoral research from National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi.

Deepak is a highly motivated life science research professional, with more than ten years of research experience in the field of immunology. He is interested in understanding the problem of low birth weight neonates born with full gestational age and Comprehensive Immunophenotyping in Healthy Individuals vs Disease Conditions. One of the main aspects of his research is to evaluate leukocytes functionality and immuno-phenotyping with the established multi-color flow cytometric protocols for more than twenty-five-odd leukocyte subsets and validated for reproducibility.

For more information visit https://thsti.res.in/profile.php?url=deepak-rathore.

ScientistE, NIRRH,

Mitochondrial dysfuntion is a major factor in cancer cell death. However, it has been difficult to understand whether the degeneration of the mitochondria in these cells as well as in immune cells is a cause or effect of the cell death. One of the difficulties in the study of mitochondria in cancer has been our limited understanding of how damaged mitochondrial proteins and lipids are degraded in steady state. There are currently at least three distinct mechanisms known for mitochondrial protein turnover. Among them autophagic degradation and proteasome-dependent pathways are important. With the exception of the mitochondrial proteases, which have been studied for some time, the molecular mechanisms and regulation of mitochondrial turnover via autophagy is less well characterized. The project aims to investigate these molecular and cellular mechanisms that underlie these phenomena using breast cancer cell line models and other cancers.

For more information visit http://www.caluniv.ac.in/academic/department/Zoology/Arindam-Bhattacharyya.pdf.

Assistant Profesor, AIIMS, New Delhi

For more information visit https://www.aiims.edu/en/news/82-biochemistry/6165-dr-archana-singh.html.

Assistant Professor, Madurai Kamraj University

For more information visit https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=tq3psfgAAAAJ&hl;=en.

The basic premise for immune algorithm is distinguishing self from nonself. This is achieved by different modules of host immune system. The ?innate? immune system recognizes the nonself based on predominantly nonself-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs), while the ?adaptive? immune axis adapts to the nonself molecular determinants. These two work together toward an effective immune response. An effective immune response to an invading pathogen (nonself) leads to protective immunity and a defective response leads to overt infection. On the other hand, an unintended response to the self-entities leads to autoimmune disorders, while a misjudged tolerance to the altered self contributes to tumorigenesis. Our research broadly concentrates on role of innate immune axis in the crossroads of infection, autoimmunity and cancer. Dendritic cells (DCs) are the innate cells with most of the decision-making responsibilities for an ensuing immune response or tolerance. We try to decipher the governing principles of self-nonself discrimination by the germline-encoded invariant pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) expressed by DCs and how they work in a given clinical context.

For more information about DR. ganguly visit http://iicb.res.in/index.php/2017/04/20/dipyaman-ganguly/.