I am a research scholar in Cancer & Blood Diseases Institute, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. I obtained my Bachler of Science degree in Life science from Ewing Christian College, Allahabad University, India and Master of Science degree in Biotechnology from Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, India. I earned my doctoral degree in Life Sciences from Central Drug Research Institute & Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. After completion of my PhD, I joined as A-Med Research fellow in Institute for Genetic Medicine, Hokkaido University, Japan. I have been awarded with ASH Scholar award (Basic/Translational Research Fellows), 2020; ASH abstract achievement award, 2018; CSIR-CDRI incentive award, 2015; Beckman Coulter-The Cytometry society (BC-TCS) award, 2014; International Travel Grant, 2013; BMBF grant (DBT-INDIGO project), 2012 and Junior/Senior Research Fellow from Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, India. I am a member of The Cytometry Society of India and American Society of Hematology. During my doctoral training, I studied the role of redox inflammatory protein, inducible nitric oxide (NO) synthase (iNOS) in myeloid leukemia and neutrophils differentiation, and function. I identified the interaction of iNOS-Rac2 in human neutrophils and unravel its significance in phagocytosis and bacterial killing. Subsequently, we observed that oxidative S-glutathionylation of cytoskeleton protein L-plastin and β-actin impaired neutrophil function, while iNOS mediated de-glutathionylation of procaspase-8 regulates neutrophil spontaneous apoptosis. In addition, by analyzing imatinib sensitive and resistant CML patients as well as following in vitro studies, we demonstrated that differential level of iNOS/NO modulates tumor microenvironment and affect imatinib mediated cytostasis and apoptosis of BCR-ABL cells. Further, we identified the role of iNOS in neutrophil differentiation, and demonstrated NOX2-mitochondrial ROS-Grx1/2-GSH-NFκB S-glutathionylation axis as a negative regulator of iNOS expression in BCR-ABL cells, and highlighted its significance in myeloid cell proliferation and differentiation. As a Post-doctoral research fellow at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, I carried research to understand the biology of bone marrow (BM) haematopoiesis during steady state and stress conditions, and demonstrated that during stress haematopoiesis, gap junction protein, Cx43 controls the mitochondrial dynamics of dividing HSC, regulates transfer of mitochondria from HSPC to BM mesenchymal progenitors, preserves AMPK mediated metabolic reprogramming of BM mesenchymal niche, and provides sufficient cellular ATP necessary for the proliferation of BM mesenchymal stromal cells. Further, I demonstrated that Akt expressing neutrophils generated from human iPSCs have the ability to circulate and target infection sites, and can be used for therapy in neutropenic patients.

I have a broad background in normal and malignant stem cell biology, metabolism, inflammation and hematopoietic disease modelling in a dish using patient derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC). My interested field of research are Metabolic disorders, Diet induced obesity, Diabetes, Inflammasome, Inflammation and immunity, Redox biology, Cancer biology including cancer stem cells and surrounding niche mediated chemoresistance and relapse and Stem cells and niche biology (Steady state and stress haematopoiesis).