Prasun Guha, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Biography
Dr. Prasun Guha was born and raised in Kolkata, India, and received his Ph.D. from the University of Calcutta, in the lab of Prof. Sandip K Bandyopadhyay. His first postdoctoral fellowship was with Dr. Hafiz Ahmed at the University of Maryland (School of Medicine). In the lab of Prof. Solomon H Snyder at Johns Hopkins Medicine, Dr. Guha completed 2nd postdoctoral fellowship. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor in the School of Life Sciences and Nevada Institute of Personalized Medicine (NIPM) at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV).
Research Interest
Our lab studies diverse signaling mechanisms and focuses on understanding how cellular signaling pathways influence disease states such as cancer, Alzheimer's, and inflammatory disorders. Two significant areas of interest are currently being pursued.
1.) The first involves exploring the role of inositol and phosphoinositide signaling in health and diseases. In Solomon H Snyder's lab, Dr. Guha discovered the role of IPMK (inositol polyphosphate multikinase) in regulating autophagy and AKT signaling and its impact on cell proliferation. IPMK is a rate-limiting enzyme for inositol penta (IP5) and hexa phosphate (IP6). In mammals, IPMK also possesses phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) activity, generating PI (3,4,5)-trisphosphate (PIP3), a second messenger that promotes cellular growth, proliferation, survival, and migration. Being enriched in the nucleus, IPMK can be a nuclear PI3kianse.
Our current focus is on defining the roles of IPMK, inositol phosphates, and phosphoinositides in controlling nuclear and cytoplasmic signaling. The foundation of our approach is the production and analysis of cell lines and mice carrying deletion mutations of IPMK. We have generated conditional knock-out IPMK mice lines and mutant cell lines. Our study begins with observations of phenotypes in cell lines or mice models, which are then mechanistically analyzed by combining biochemical, cell biological, genomic and structural biology approaches. We link our bench side discovery to human health using GWAS (genome-wide association studies) and bioinformatic analysis, emphasizing cancer, neurodegenerative disorders, and inflammation.
2.) The second involves understanding the role of nuclear events in Alzheimer's disease. Critical cellular events like replication, transcription, DNA repair, and recombination are housed in the nucleus. Our lab is interested to understand how these fundamental nuclear events impact Alzheimer's disease promotion and progression.
Areas of Interest and Expertise
Cell signaling, Cancer metastasis, Crohn's diseases, Intestinal inflammation, Gut microbiome, Alzheimer's disease and age-related disorders, and Personalized Medicine.