Academic Background:
Dr. Pradip Sinha received his Ph. D. from Banaras Hindu University. As a Humboldt Foundation Fellow, he received his post-doctoral training in the German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg. Prior to joining the BSBE department in June, 2001, he was a Professor of Life Sciences in D. A. University, Indore.
Research Interests:
The model organism fruit fly, Drosophila, is ideal for exploring the cellular and developmental basis of human diseases. For instance, nearly two third of the genes implicated in cancers in human are conserved in Drosophila, thereby making it one of the most promising models to explore genetic, cellular and developmental mechanisms of carcinogenesis. Mutation in Drosophila tumor suppressors like lgl, scrib and dlg produce neoplasms while those in fat, lgd, or hippo induce hyperplasia: these, respectively, represent the fly equivalents of cancers and benign overgrowths in human. Dr Sinha's interests are focused on understanding the developmental and genetic basis of cancers and hyperplasia. His eventual goal is to extend this fundamental knowledge from the fly model to the understanding of carcinogenesis in human. Two ongoing investigations in Dr Sinha's lab are:
- Identification of the signaling pathways implicated in Drosophila cancers and hyperplasia, and their cellular and developmental ramifications.
- Study of the transcriptomes in Drosophila to identify the genetic networks perturbed during carcinogenesis and hyperplasia. In this microarray-based approach, he profiles gene expression on the Affymetrix platform.
