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Systems Biology

 

Research areas:

The goal of the Systems Biology Laboratory (SBL) at ILBS is to progress the understanding of underlying mechanisms in liver diseases by employing a systems approach. The laboratory has a rare distinction in working on molecular mechanisms from cellular (hepatocytes and others) to ecosystem levels (gut microbiome) with focus on:

  • Unravelling the molecular pathways active between cells and tissues during disease progression using the “Omics” approach. For this we use an integrated approach of genomic, proteomic, metabolomic and metagenomic tools. An intense area of research in this regard is the genetic analysis of inheritance patterns of the potential candidate genes which when mutated results in genetic disorders which finally affect the liver functioning. Our group has screened affected families to identify potentially susceptible individuals by mutation analysis screening.
  • Importance of gut microbiota in diseases : Human body can now be recognized as a fully functional ecosystem, with microbes having an integral role in its functioning. With recent attention on the importance of gut microbiota in diseases, the gut-liver axis needs to be studied in detail to determine the role these microbes play in maintaining a healthy liver or progression towards disease. Using the Next Generation Sequencing tools the group has analyzed the gut metagenome of chronic alcoholic patients. Microbiota variability and association to disease is an active project for fatty liver disorders. Modification of microbiota by dietary alterations is currently being investigated in diseased patients as well as animal models of liver disease.
  • At the cellular level, the lab is involved in determining the role of autophagy and endoplasmic reticulum stress in hepatic disorders like non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), fibrosis, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and other metabolic disorders. Both these processes are well integrated and have been implicated as protective in smaller perturbations but destructive with continuous stress on the cells. Our aim is to determine the tripping point where these pathways shift from a protective to a destructive mode. At the sub-cellular level, the mitochondrial protein translocases are under investigation for their role in maintenance of the health of both normal and carcinomatous hepatocytes. The aim of the project is to determine the modification in mechanism of these beta barrel proteins in regulating the function of the mitochondria in healthy and diseased hepatocytes.
  • Computational methods are employed for analysis of the multi-omic data generated by proteomic, metabolomic, metagenomic high throughput techniques. We implement machine learning algorithms (as suited for the study) over various platforms like R, Python, and other.

 

Team

Principal Investigator:

Research Fellows:

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