Arunika Lab

Research Focus

Inflammation is the manifestation of innate immune responses against the pathogen or tissue damage but sterile inflammation (inflammation without any infection) or persistent chronic inflammation can cause several autoimmune diseases even cancer. Our lab is mainly interested in looking at how inflammatory pathways are modulated gram-negative enteric bacteria. Gram-negative enteric bacteria cause gastroenteritis in infected individuals which could lead to mild to severe discomfort to life threatening situations. It could affect or change the life style of the infected person. Understanding of the pathogenesis pattern and working out the inflammatory immune signaling network are one of the main focus of our lab. As bacteria bring an arsenal of protein factors to manipulate the host system, understanding the role of these factors in modulation of host cellular responses is critical to detailed understanding of the bacterial pathogenesis and eventual better designing of vaccine and therapy. Towards understanding the role of gram-negative bacterial ligands towards disease pathogenesis and modulation of innate/inflammatory responses research of our lab currently focused on following aims:

• Characterization of Vibrio cholerae, Vibrio parahaemolyticus and Vibrio vulnificus outer membrane protein OmpU, Salmonella typhimurium outer membrane protein OmpV and Salmonella typhimurium translocation effector proteins and Vibrio cholerae cytolysin towards manipulation of host responses 

• Post-menopausal osteoporosis 

with special emphasis on understanding

·      the molecular mechanism of innate immune responses/inflammation;

·      the immune network;

·      effect of innate immune responses on adaptive response;

·      cell death pathway;

·      bacterial pathogenesis.

News from the lab

Ms Deepinder Kaur, a PhD student won travel award from 'Bill and Melinda Gates foundation' to attain 'World Microbe Forum', 2021 (annual meeting of ASM-FEMS in joint online platform)

Mr. GVR Krisna Prasad, a PhD student won 'World Congress of Inflammation 2019 award' in the 14th World Congress of Inflammation organized by International Association of Inflammation Societies held at Sydney, Australia between 15-19th Sptember, 2019

Ms Aakanksha Gulati, a PhD student won best poster award in 33rd Annual Meeting of the European Macrophage and Dendritic Cell Society (EMDS) held at Marseille, France between 12-14th September, 2019