THE LAB
Our Lab's primary research interest is to understand the regulation of copper transporters in mammalian cell.
Copper Transporter 1, CTR1 is a channel which imports copper into the cell. ATP7A and ATP7B are the ATPases (pumps) which provide copper into the secretory pathway and also help to export excess copper out of the cells. Copper is an essential micro-nutrient, serves as co-factor in various metabolic pathways. But excess copper is toxic and detrimental to biological system as it heavily participates in redox reactions generating high amount of ROS. So, the amount of copper is tightly regulated inside a cell where CTR1 and ATP7A/B participates in maintaining intracellular copper homeostasis.
We mainly focus on the trafficking regulation of these copper transporters by using high resolution imaging technique along with molecular tools to address our questions. Beside these we also study the regulation of these transporters at molecular level using MD simulation. We are also trying to develop new imaging techniques and analysis programs.
Since our major focus is trafficking of copper transporters we call ourselves as 'TRAFFICKERS'.
We are also trying to tweak the copper metabolism pathway to combat platinum drug resistance in cancer. We collaborate with IISERK Chemistry group to develop better metal-based anticancer drugs.
Our model organisms: Polarized epithelial cells, yeast and mouse
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FUNDING
