Dr. Gopal Kundu has obtained his Ph.D. from Bose Institute, Kolkata, India (1989) in
Protein Biochemistry. He did his post-doctoral research work at The Cleveland Clinic
Foundation, University of Colorado, University of Wyoming, and The National Institutes
of Health, USA from 1989 to 1998. He has performed excellent work in the area of
cardiovascular biology, inflammation and immunomodulation during that period. In
1998, he joined as Scientist-D at National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS), India. At
present, he is working as Scientist-F at NCCS. His area of research at NCCS is tumor
biology, regulation of gene expression, cell signaling, angiogenesis, cancer
therapeutics, biomarker study for cancer detection and nanomedicine which earned him
many national and international laurels.
These works from Dr. Kundu’s laboratory have been published in several high
impact factor peer reviewed journals including Cancer Research, JBC, Trends in Cell
Biology, Current Molecular Medicine and Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Targets
etc. These works are recognized internationally by several groups in these areas and
the papers published based on these works from Dr. Kundu’s laboratory are highly
cited. Dr. Kundu has also published a large number of papers including Nature
Medicine, Science, PNAS, JBC etc during his post doctoral research work in USA. The
impact factor, citation and based on the citations, the H-index of Dr. Kundu’s
publications are very high (25.00) as compared to any other scientists at National
Centre for Cell Science, Pune as well as many other recognized life scientists in India.
He has received several awards including Fellows Award for Research Excellence
(FARE) from The National Institutes of Health, USA, National Bioscience Award, DBT,
Govt. of India and Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in Biological Sciences, CSIR, Govt. of India. He has recently received International Award for outstanding achievement in oncology. He is Fellow of National Academy of Sciences, India and Indian Academy of Sciences. He is member of American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and New York Academy of Sciences. He has published 56 papers in peer reviewed international journals and one US patent. He serves as Editorial Board Member of Current Molecular Medicine, Molecular Medicine Reports, The Open Cancer Journal and American Journal of Cancer Research. He reviewed papers from various journals including Nature, Nature Reviews Cancer, JNCI, MCB, JBC, Cancer Research, Clinical Cancer Research, Expt. Cell Res., Mol. Cancer Therapeutics, Carcinogenesis, Gastroenterology, FASEB J, Eur. J. Cancer, Oncogene, Life Sciences, BMC Cancer, JCMM, Lab. Invest., Intl. J. of Cancer, BBRC and grant proposals from Wellcome Trust UK, Cancer Research UK, MRC UK and Health Research Board (HRB), Ireland.
Regulation of Gene Expression, Signal Transduction, Extracellular Matrix, Tumor Biology, Angiogenesis, Cancer Therapeutics, Biomarker Study for Cancer Detection and Nanomedicine
Recent studies from Dr. Kundu’s laboratory demonstrated that osteopontin can act as potential diagnostic and prognostic marker in various cancers including breast. Dr. Kundu and his group have recently demonstrated that cancer research is focused on the paradigm that tumor progression involves an intricate crosstalk between tumors and stromal environment. His research is primarily focused on delineating the molecular mechanisms by which tumor and stroma-derived osteopontin (OPN), a cytokine like SIBLING family of calcified ECM-associated protein plays an important role in determining the oncogenic potential of various cancers. The results revealed that both stroma and tumor derived OPN regulates a series of signaling events through activation of various signaling molecules that ultimately control the expression of downstream effector genes, which contribute to tumor progression and angiogenesis. Moreover, the functional role of intracellular and secretory OPN as well as the role of various splice variants of OPN in regulating stroma-tumor interaction leading to tumor angiogenesis is
in progress. Several lines of evidences revealed that epithelial to mesenchymal transition plays crucial role in controlling tumor growth and metastasis. The role of OPN in regulation of epithelial to mesenchymal transition and its correlation to breast cancer progression and angiogenesis is being studied in our laboratory. Furthermore, OPN is not only associated with several tumor types, but its level of expression directly correlates to various stages of cancers. The findings from his laboratory have made seminal contribution that highlight the potential role of both tumor and stroma-derived OPN and the molecular mechanism underlying the genesis of tumor progression which may be useful in developing targeted therapy for the treatment of cancer.
                              Current Projects
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Role of splice variants, secretory and intracellular OPN in regulation of stroma-tumor interaction leading to tumor angiogenesis, tumor cell invasion and metastasis. Role of OPN and αvβ3 integrin in epithelial to mesenchymal transition and its correlation to tumor growth and metastasis
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Studies on peptide nanoparticle-mediated drug/siRNA delivery to tumor vasculature regulates tumor growth and angiogenesis using in vitro and in vivo model and it's analysis by In Vivo Imaging System (IVIS)
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Development of novel diagnostic and prognostic clinical biomarkers in breast cancer