Collaborations

Endothelial progenitor cells and diabetes

In this project with Dr. V. Mohan, Chief Diabetologist, Madras Diabetes Research Foundation, we are determining molecular and functional differences in endothelial progenitor cells obtained from age- and sex- matched healthy, pre-diabetic and diabetic Asian Indian subjects. The motivation for this study was the observation that unlike western populations Indians exhibit an 'Asian Indian' phenotype for presentation of diabetes. This phenotype is characterized by low BMI, abdominal obesity and early onset of the disease as opposed to other populations.

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Endothelial progenitor cells and eNOS

In this project, we investigate molecular mechanisms, which regulate eNOS activity in healthy and diabetic subjects. This work is being done in collaboration with Prof. Ingrid Fleming, Vascular Research Center, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

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Vascular progenitor cells and polycystic ovaries

This project is in collaboration with Dr. Jayashree Gopal, Consultant Endocrinologist and Diabetologist, Apollo Hospitals, Chennai. Here we are trying to score for differences in circulating levels and functional behavior of isolated vascular progenitor cells from age- and BMI-matched healthy and polycystic amenorrhoeic women.

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FUNCFOOD project

This project is an Indo-EU project involving three Indian investigators (Dr. S. Nagini, Annamalai University, Dr. Bhanuprakash Reddy NIN, Hyderabad and Dr. Madhulika Dixit, IIT Madras) and five European institutions. The objective of this project is to investigate food-derived agents with potential use as "functional food" constituents with respect to protection against diabetic vascular complications and cancer. Further details are in the following link: http://www.gmt.su.se/english/funcfood.