Extracellular vesicles offer great therapeutic opportunities for understanding biological mechanisms, diagnostic prospects and drug delivery for various disorders. Our laboratory explores the potential of extracellular vesicles from multiple sources for therapeutic applications and drug delivery. Our primary interest is treating neurological disorders, including neurodegenerative, neuroendocrine, neurodevelopmental, and lysosomal storage disorders, using extracellular vesicles through drug and protein delivery. The laboratory has a well-established facility for the generation, isolation and characterization of extracellular vesicles and aims to bring these EVs for clinical applications within next 5 years. We are also highly interested in understanding pathological conditions using EV dynamics with an aim to use them for diagnostic and prognostic purposes. 

 

We are also interested in using human induced pluripotent stem cells and mesenchymal stem cells  for various disease modeling. The pathological alterations that manifest during the early embryonic development due to inherited and acquired factors trigger various neurodevelopmental disorders including epilepsy, neuronal migration disorders and neurocognitive dysfunctions.. We are focused on the potential use of stem cells and rodent models for elucidating neurodevelopmental disorders related to GABAergic interneuron development and dysfunction.  Our laboratory has a well-established facility for stem cell research and utilizes established directed differentiation protocols for the generation of multiple types of human neurons and 3D brain organoids from pluripotent stem cells..  

 

We utilize fluorescence microscopy, dual and triple immunofluorescence, immunohistochemistry, western blot, qPCR, ELISA, and other biochemical and cell-based assays, etc., in the facility and utilizes CRISPR/cas9 mediated gene editing, RNA sequencing, proteomic and lipidomic studies through collaborative research.  The laboratory depends on Kasturba Hospital Manipal for the patient population and clinical samples. and central animal facility for animal studies.