Medical School, is one of this year's recipients of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director's New Innovator Award. Dr. Nanda will receive $1.5 million over five years to support his novel approach to creating a synthetic network of proteins resembling the extracellular matrix of mammalian cells. This will allow research into the role of the matrix in normal and disease processes and help translate new findings into the development of biomaterials.
The extracellular matrix (ECM) is a complex network of proteins that provides a surface upon which cells can adhere, transform and spread rapidly. It mediates communication within cells and under normal conditions can suppress a cell's transformation from a normal state to one that is malignant. Alterations in the ECM are critical contributors to a wide spectrum of diseases, including cancer, lupus and other autoimmune disorders. Dr. Nanda's research focuses on the construction of artificial collagen-based matrices using computational methods. These matrices will be used to examine the role of chemical and spatial organization of the network of proteins in the ECM on the tumor forming potential of adhered cells.
According to Dr. Nanda, artificial matrices provide a powerful system for studying molecular aspects of the matrix biology of cancer. Successfully designed matrices can be applied to engineering safer artificial human tissues that may provide therapeutic treatment of chronic diseases, including those of the bowel, bone and skin.
Dr. Nanda earned his bachelor degree in biology at California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, and his doctoral degree in biochemistry at Johns Hopkins University, under the guidance of Dr. Ludwig Brand. He conducted post-doctoral research at the University of Pennsylvania with Dr. William F. DeGrado, after which he joined Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. He conducts research at the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, an interdisciplinary collaboration between Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Rutgers University, directed by Aaron Shatkin, PhD, and dedicated to advancing biomedical research and education in the life sciences.
NIH New Innovator Awards support a small number of investigators of exceptional creativity who propose bold and highly innovative new research approaches that have the potential to produce a major impact on broad, important problems in biomedical and behavioral science.
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