Research >> Stem Cell Transplantation and Research

Stem Cell Transplantation

Pharmacogenetics in Stem Cell Transplantation: In order to reduce treatment related toxicities which are considerable in patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), pioneering work on the pharmacokinetics (PK), pharmacogenetics (PG) and pharmacodynamics (PD) of drugs used as HSCT conditioning regimen, mainly myeloablative drugs busulfan and cyclophosphamide has been done in this field with major publications providing new knowledge to the world. The overall aim is to understand the inter-individual variation in treatment response in patients undergoing HSCT and ultimately to try and individualize the dose of these drugs in patients undergoing BMT. Our current research in this area is to address the PK, PG and PD of Fludarabine and Treosulfan in the toxicity reduced conditioning regimen used in HSCT and to find the role of these factors on BMT outcome.

Ongoing Research Projects

• Pharmacokinetic, pharmacogenetic and pharmacodynamic analysis of fludarabine based conditioning regimen for HSCT, Funded by DBT. PI: Poonkuzhali Balasubramanian

• Alok Srivastava, M.D
• Biju George, M.D., D.M
• Poonkuzhali Balasubramanian, Ph.D.
•  Vikram Mathews, M.D., D.M

Stem Cell Research: Over the last 5 years, we have developed the infrastructure for using bone marrow derived progenitor cells such as mesenchymal stromal cells for regenerative medicine and immunomodulation. We have established a small unit for processing such cells under current good manufacturing practice conditions for clinical studies. We have also been able to work other departments for other human studies or develop animal models. Several faculties from the department are involved in this work.

Introduction of four transcription factors Oct-4, Sox2, Klf4 and c-Myc into adult cells can covert them to pluripotent stem cells. These induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) exhibit features characteristic of embryonic stem (ES) cells. These cells have exciting new prospects for biomedical research, drug discovery and for regenerative medicine. Our lab is interested in understanding the mechanism of the reprogramming process and the use of these cells to understand the pathophysiology of human diseases

Ongoing Research Projects

• Project 1: Generation of human induced pluripotent stem cells-Funded by Department of Biotechnology 2010-2012