The Guest Speaker for the session was Dr Amitava Das, Principal Scientist, CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Toxicology, Hyderabad. He works on understanding the molecular cues in Stem Cells for developing regenerative therapies. Dr. Das' and his colloborator's group have been granted with a US patent on their technology of "Porous Polymer Scaffold Useful for Tissue Engineering In Stem Cell Transplantation". His research also focuses on molecular signal transduction and transcriptional regulation of target genes that modulate Cancer Stem Cell -generation via EMT, chemoresistance, metastasis and identify druggable molecular targets. Dr. Das' group not only uses molecular biology and cell biology tools for understanding the molecular mechanism of actions and basic biology of Stem Cells but has also developed pre-clinical models to test the proof-of-concept. He completed his post-doctoral research from Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA and Mayo Clinic, USA. He was appointed as Assistant Professor at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, California, USA.
The session was organized and conducted by Dr. Sayali Mukherjee, Assistant Professor, AIB_L, under guidance of Prof (Dr) Janmejai Kumar Srivastava, Director, AIB_L.
The session was attended by the students of BSc (BT) VI and MSc (BT) II, BSc (BT) III, PGDCB II and AIB faculty members. Honourable, Dr Aseem Chauhan, Chancellor AUUP and Chairman AUUP Lucknow Campus also attended the session. The whole session is recorded and can be made available.
The speaker initiated his lecture with the definition of stem cell and then introduced the concept of potency like totipotency, pluripotency, unipotency. He described the sources of stem cells and a brief history of stem cells. He talked about the transcription factors and epigenetic factors controlling pluripotency. He explained the concept of induced pluripotency. He talked about stem cell surface markers. Differentiation and trans-differentiation were explained. Isolation of stem cells and their differentiation into mesenchymal stem cells and hematopoietic stem cells was elaborated. Concept of regenerative medicine was introduced. Stem cell-based therapies were discussed vividly. Research updates were given. The challenges commonly encountered in stem cell-based therapies were also discussed. He described the techniques of stem cell therapies performed in his laboratory. Different approved stem cell-based therapies were discussed. He concluded with the concept of neovascularization in regenerative medicine. The students and faculty members interacted with their queries which were satisfactorily answered by the speaker.