Prof. Chinmoy Sankar Dey
Bhatnagar Awardee
J.C.Bose Fellow
Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Sciences,
Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences
Visiting Scientist, Diabetes Research Foundation, Madras
Adjunct Faculty, Institute of Life Sciences, Hyderabad,
​
Professor, Kusuma School of Biological Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi,
Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016, India.
Email: csdey@bioschool.iitd.ac.in
Dr. Chinmoy Sankar Dey has done his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata. He did his Postdoctoral Research at the California Institute of Technology, USA, and the Baylor College of Medicine, Texas, USA. In 1994 he joined the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), Punjab, as an Assistant Professor and during the year 2000 he became the Professor and later became the Head of the Department of Biotechnology, NIPER, and worked upto the year 2010. Currently he is working as a Professor, in the School of Biological Sciences, at IIT-Delhi. He has over 70 primary research publications and 6 reviews in reputed international journals. He has one US patent, 3 book chapters. He has 20 years of teaching graduate and postgraduate students. He has guided several PhD and masters thesis. Because of his significant contributions in science Professor Dey has been awarded: (1) Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award, the highest award in science in India, in 2003 from the Prime Minster of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh, (2) National BioScience Award-2003 from the Department of Biotechnology, India, from Dr. R. Chidambaram, the then Scientific Advisor of the Prime Minister of India, (3) OPPI award-2005 in “Pharmaceutical Biotechnology” by Hon'ble Minister Shri Kapil Sibal, (4) CDRI Award for Excellence in Drug Research-2008, (5) The prestigious J.C. Bose Fellowship from the Department of Science and Technology, 2009. He is a Visiting Scientist, at the Diabetes Research Foundation, Madras, and an Adjunct Professor of the Institute of Life Sciences, Hyderabad. Prof. Dey was a Member, Editorial Board of the journal Scientific Reports, (Nature Publishing group). He was a Regional Associate Editor, Journal of Biopharmaceutics and Biotechnology, USA. He was a Member, Editorial Board, Open Parasitology Journal, Bentham Publisher.
POST DOC OPENINGS (16.11.22)- Motivated individuals looking for a Post Doctoral opportunity and willing to apply for CSIR/DBT/ICMR/NPDF etc fellowships, who are excited about divulging mechanisms behind insulin signalling and its impairment from the perspective of neuronal cells, are encouraged to write to us. (csdlab2022@gmail.com)
Cover image designed by Mishra and Dey. Mishra and Dey have opined how fine tuning of PKCα isoform activity may balance regulating Diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Cancer. The image depicts a person trying to balance on PKCα (depicted by PKCα structure, obtained from PDB) to regulate Diabetes (depicted by glucose structure held by the left hand), AD (depicted by amyloid fibrils held by the right hand) and Cancer (depicted by a Crab grabbing the right ankle, obtained from BioRender).
GRANTS:
-
CSIR: Regulation of insulin signaling by dephosphorylation of AS160 and GSK3beta and its possible implication in insulin-resistant diabetes in neuronal cells in vitro. Rs. 16.4 lakhs. 2019-2022.
-
DBT: Isoform specific functions of Akt kinase in neuronal insulin signaling and insulin-resistant diabetes. Rs. 82.5lakhs. 2020-2023.
-
DST (SERB): Development of an in vitro exercise model of hippocampal cells. Rs. 40 lakhs. 2020-2023.
-
ICMR: Role of protein kinase Cα in neuronal insulin signalling. Rs. 60 Lakhs. 2020-2023.
-
MFIRP: IIT-D-University College London : Diabetes and frailty: Investigating insulin signalling and resistance of intrafusal muscle fibres. Rs.5 lakh. 2020-2021.
​
Research Interests
Diabetes Signalling Regulated by Signal Transduction
Leishmania Flagellar Motility Regulated by Signal Transduction
Mouse skeletal muscle cells in culture.
A mouse neuroblastoma cells under bright field microscopy.
A magnified image of a muscle fibre.
Mouse neuroblastoma cells transfected with CRISPR plasmid having GFP as a reporter gene.
During last two and a half decades our research interests have been to understand how protein kinases and phosphatases mediated signal transduction regulate the molecular mechanism of insulin resistant diabetes. Our laboratory has contributed in deciphering the complex signal transduction cascades to elucidate the mechanism of regulation of insulin resistance in skeletal muscle cells and neuronal cells in vitro. Major highlights are:
1. A novel in vitro insulin resistant neuronal cell model developed to study insights into the signalling mechanisms in neuronal insulin resistance. The model is simple, relevant, cheaper than animal models and good for primary screening.
2. Our laboratory has provided one of the possible mechanisms of action of Metformin, the FDA approved drug for the treatment of insulin resistance, against peripheral insulin resistant diabetes.
3.Our laboratory has identified proteins like PTEN (a protein phosphatase), FAK (a protein kinase), Sirt2 (a deacetylase), and PAK (a protein kinase) and their regulatory roles in insulin-sensitive and –resistant signaling pathways in skeletal muscle and neuronal cells in vitro. These provides opportunities for future animal/clinical studies for drug discovery. Currently we are looking deeper into the interactions and functions of very critical insulin signalling proteins Akt, AS160, protein kinase C in regulating insulin resistant diabetes.
A B
C D
Effect of Paclitaxel on distribution of acetylated tubulins in Ld-Wt. (A) & (C) immunofluorescence images; (B) & (D) surface plot analysis of acetylated tubulins in control and taxol treated Ld-Wt respectively. Scale bars, 2mM.
Leishmaniasis causes a geographically widespread diseases, called Leishmanasis. The Leishmania flagellum is a highly versatile organelle that exhibits intricate environment triggered responses. However, till date flagellar motility and its regulation in Leishmania remains poorly understood despite the importance in its survival and infectivity. In humans, defects in cilia cause a group of severe diseases called ciliopathies. Eukaryotic parasites like trypanosomes have served as attractive models for the study of such genetic defects in humans. However, there is no suitable model till date for the study of the signalling and regulatory mechanisms of ciliary motility in ciliopathies. In our laboratory, we have developed a demembranated ATP-reactivated model (LRP) for studying molecular mechanisms that regulate flagellar motility in Leishmania. Such a model allows the researcher complete control to manipulate the cell chemically and mechanically under controlled standardized conditions. We believe that reactivation of flagellar motility in demembranated Leishmania presents it as an attractive model for flagellar motility studies. Using our model we observed that cAMP, via protein kinase A mediates “wave reversal” of the flagellar waveform to a ciliary waveform which has been believed to have a role in tactic responses such as obstacle-avoidance, chemotaxis, osmotaxis etc. With this model we are also interested in elucidating the effects of other second messenger molecules, role of dynein ATPases in regulating the flagellar beat and waveform.
Eureka Program 2019
Lab Members
Dr. Minakshi Mann
Current work- Diabetes and insulin signaling.
Qualifications- PhD., All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.
Atreyi Mukherjee
Current work- Role of kinases and phosphatases in insulin signaling
Qualification: GATE ; M.Sc. Biochemistry, University of Calcutta.
​
Dr. Shankari Prasad Datta
Current work- Characterization of Proteins associated with Leishmania flagellum function
Qualifications- Ph.D., Bose Institute, Kolkata
Ishitha Reddy
Current work- Exercise-mediated signaling in neuronal cells
Qualifications- DBT-SRF; MSc Microbiology, BHU
Devanshi mishra
Current work- Protein kinase C (PKC) in insulin signalling
Qualifications- CSIR-SRF, B.Tech Biotechnology,GGSIPU
Alumni
Dr. Medha Sharma
Current Affiliation: University of California, San Diego, USA
Worked on: Regulation of AKT isoforms-AS160 GLUT4 axis by PHLPP and PP1 isoforms affecting neuronal insulin signalling and resistance.
Dr. Yamini
Current Affiliation: Yale University, Connecticut, USA
Worked on: Ser/Thr phosphatases PP1γ and PP2Cα in regulating insulin signaling and resistance.
Dr. Kapil Manglani
Worked on- Tankyrase in insulin signalling
Qualifications- PhD from NII, New Delhi
Dr. Amita Arora
Worked on: SIRT 2 in regulating insulin sensitivity and resistant in neuronal and muscle cells.
Current Affiliation: University of Helsinki, Finland.
​
Dr. Abhijeet K. Chaudhary
Worked on: NCor regulating insulin sensitivity in muscle cells.
Former SERB Young Scientist Fellow
Dr. Aakash G. Mukhopadhyay
Worked on: Molecular regulation of Leishmania flagellar motility and waveforms.
Current Affiliation: Birkbeck Institute,University of London, UK.
Dr. Pallavi Varshney
Worked on: PAK2 in regulating insulin sensitivity and resistant in neuronal and muscle cells.
Current Affiliation: University of Michigan, USA.
G. Srinivas Reddy
Worked on: Effect of Ciliobrevin A on Leishmania flagellar motility.
Current Affiliation: CCMB, Hyderabad.
Former Masters Student.
Professor C.S.Dey
Kusuma School of Biological Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi,
Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016, India.
Email: csdey@bioschool.iitd.ac.in