Research Groups

Mammalian Biology: Malaria

Group Leader

Research Interests and Description
Group Members

Virander S. Chauhan

Director, ICGEB New Delhi Component

International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology
Aruna Asaf Ali Marg
110 067 New Delhi, India

E-mail: virander@icgeb.res.in
Office tel: +91-11-26742317, 26741358/61, 26742357/60 (EPBX)
Office fax: +91-11-26742316

Education

Delhi University, New Delhi, India, MSc (Chemistry), 1971
Delhi University, New Delhi, India, PhD (Chemistry), 1974
Oxford University, UK, PhD, 1977

Career History

Since 1998, Group Leader (Malaria Research Group) and Director of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), New Delhi, India
1988-1998, Senior Scientist and Group Leader of the Malaria Research Group of the ICGEB in New Delhi.
1986-1988, Professor, Department of Chemistry, Delhi University, New Delhi.
1982-1986, Reader, Department of Chemistry, Delhi University, New Delhi.
1979-1981, Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanur, India.
1977-1978, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Chemistry, University of Georgia, Atlanta, USA.
1971-1979, Lecturer, St. Stephen's College, Delhi University, New Delhi.

Scientific Activity

Research interests are in malaria vaccine and drug development research. His Group has developed procedures to prepare recombinant vaccine target antigens and with industrial partners, vaccine formulation has been developed for clinical trial, in India. His work on understanding the mechanism of actions of antimalarial drugs like chloroquine and artemisinin has led to the development of high throughput screens for malaria drug discovery. Another research interest of his Group is in the area of design, synthesis and utility of conformationally defined peptides. This work has proven useful in the design of antibiotic peptide, anti amyloid and more recently, in self assembling systems.

Selected publications

Mishra, A., Panda, J.J., Basu, A., Chauhan, V.S. 2008. Nanovesicles based on self-assembly of conformationally constrained aromatic residue containing amphiphilic dipeptides. Langmuir 24, 4571-4576

Mukherjee, P., Chauhan, V.S. 2008. Plasmodium falciparum free merozoites and infected RBC’s distinctly affect soluble CD40 ligand-mediated maturation of immature monocyte-derived dendritic cells; J. Leuk Biol. 84, 244-254

Mukherjee, P., Devi, Y.S., Chauhan, V.S. 2008. Blood stage malaria induce different activation – induced cell death programs in splenic CD4+ t Cells. Parasite Immunology 30, 497-514

Wickramarachchi, T., Devi, Y.S., Mohmmed, A., Chauhan, V.S. 2008. Identification and characterization of a novel Plasmodium falciparum merozoite apical protein, involved in erythrocyte binding and invasion. PLoS 3, e1732-e1743

Devi, Y.S., Mukherjee, P., Yazdani, S.S., Shakri, A.R., Mazumdar, S., Pandey,  S., Chitnis, C. E.,  Chauhan, V. S. 2007. Immunogenicity of Plasmodium vivax combination subunit vaccine formulated with human compatible adjuvants in mice. Vaccine 25, 5166-5174

Gupta, M., Bagaria, A, Mishra, A., Mathur, P., Basu, A., Ramakumar, S., Chauhan, V. S. 2007. Self-Assembly of a Dipeptide Containing Conformationally Restricted Dehydrophenylalanine Residue to Form Ordered Nanotubes. Adv. Mater. 19, 858-861

Kumar, A., Kumar, K., Korde, R., Puri, S., Malhotra, P., Chauhan, V.S. 2007. Falcipain-1: A Plasmodium falciparum cysteine protease with a vaccine potential. Infect. & Immun. 75, 2026-2034

Gupta, A., Mehrotra, R., Klimov, E., Siesler, H.W., Joshi, R.M.,  Chauhan, V.S. 2006. Thermal stability of dehydrophenylalanine-containing model peptides as probed by infrared spectroscopy: a case study of α-Helical and a 310-Helical peptide. Chem. & Biod. 3, 284-295

Rudresh, Gupta, M., Ramakumar, S., Ramagopal U.A., Chauhan V.S. 2007. Observation of glycine zipper and unanticipated occurrence of ambidextrous helices in the crystal structure of a chiral undecapeptide. BMC Struct. Biol. (in press)

Rodrigues, J., Agrawal, N, Sharma, A., Singh, D., Malhotra, P., Adak, T., Chauhan, V.S., Bhatnagar, R.K. 2007. Transcriptional analysis of an immune-responsive serine protease from Indian Malaria vector, Anopheles culicifaces. BMC Mol. Biol. 8, 33

Gupta, M., Bagaria, A., Mishra, A., Mathur, P., Basu, A., Ramakumar, S., Chauhan, V.S. 2007. Self-assembly of a dipeptide-containing conformationally restricted dehydrophenylalanine Residue to from ordered nanotubes. Adv. Mat.

Pradhan, A., Chauhan, V.S., Tuteja, R. 2007. ‘DEAD-box’ helicase from Plasmodium falciparum is active at wide pH and is schizont stage-specific. J. Vect. Borne Dis. 44, 12-22

Mathur, P., Jagannathan, N.R., Chauhan, V.S. 2007. α, β-Dehydrophenylalanine containing cecropin-melittin hybrid peptides: conformation and activity. J. Pept. Sci.

Das, P., Grewal, J.S., Mahajan, B., Chauhan, V.S. 2007. Comparison of cellular and humoral responses to recombinant protein and synthetic peptides of exon2 region of Plasmodium falciparum erythrocyte membrane protein1 (PfEMP1) among malaria patients from an endemic region. Parasitol. Int. 56, 51-59 

Sharma, S.K., Tyagi, P.K., Padhan, K., Upadhyay, A.K., Haque, M., Joshi, H., Biswas, S., Nanda, N., Adak, T., Chauhan, V.S., Chitnis, C.E., Subbarao, S.K. 2006. Epidemiology of malaria in forest and plain ecotypes of Sundergarh District, Orissa, India. Trans. R. Soc. Trop. Med. 100, 917-925

Yazdani, S.S., Mukherjee, P., Chauhan, V.S., Chitnis, C.E. 2006. Immune responses to asexual blood-stages of malaria parasites. Current Molecular Medicine 6, 187-203