Prof. Amitabha Bandyopadhyay
I am a vertebrate developmental biologist. I study differentiation and patterning in the context of vertebrate limb skeleton or appendicular skeleton. Appendicular skeleton development starts with a single cartilage nodule which branches and segments to give rise to all the elements of the adult skeleton. Post segmentation, majority of the cartilage primordium is converted to bone (through a process called – endochondral ossification i.e. formation of bone within the cartilage) barring the cells at the surface of the elements (joint surface) which remain as cartilage forever.
In our lab we uncovered the molecular mechanism of how adjacent cells adopt distinct fates – cartilage and bone. We also uncovered why mechanical movement is critical for joint cartilage development. We have recently concluded the study designed to understand how the site of segmentations are chosen in a developing limb skeleton and discovered the gene responsible for initiation of the cascade leading to joint formation. We are now actively studying the molecular mechanism of skeletal branching.
We use a variety of omics methods to discover genes critically important for cartilage and bone formation.
The information gleaned from such basic science studies are applied to understand the etiology of prevalent skeletal disorders such as osteoarthritis and osteoporosis.
Apart from developmental biology, I have active interest in development and commercialization of medical devices. I have co-authored a book titled, “The Ventilator Project: How the IIT Kanpur Consortium Built a World-class Product during India’s Covid-19 Lockdown”