Prasenjit Guchhait

Address:

Department of Medicine,
Baylor College of Medicine,
One Baylor Plaza, N1319.

Research Interests:

• Dr. Guchhait has long-standing interest in thrombosis and cardiovascular research.
• His research is focused on the complex mechanism of thrombosis, vasoocclusion and cardiovascular impairments in patients with sickle cell disease, thalassemia and hemolytic uremic syndrome.
• He is working on the molecular mechanism that links intravascular-hemolysis and the above clinical events.
• More specifically, how excessive extracellular hemoglobin promotes above clinical crises events under pathophysiological conditions.
• His research describes that excessive extracellular hemoglobin blocks the cleavage of von Willebrand factor (VWF) and promotes accumulation of ultralarge VWF multimers in plasma and on endothelium.
• The ultralarge VWF multimers are hyperactive and are associated with above clinical complications in patients.
• His research also focused on identifying adhesive molecules on blood cells surface and on vascular endothelium that mediates unusual cell adhesion and culminate vascular occlusion in patients.
• His research describe that increased exposure of adhesive membrane lipid, sulfatide on activated-platelet surface promotes platelets adhesion and thrombosis.
• The increased exposure of sulfatide on sickled-red blood cells surface mimics the sickle cell adhesion to the endothelium and sub-endothelial matrices.
• His research is also focused on translation of above molecular and genomic findings to therapeutic practice.
• He has designed a recombinant small single-chain antibody against sulfatide that inhibits platelets adhesion to endothelium.
• Currently in vivo experiments are in progress to determine the effects of anti-sulfatide scFvs on blood cells adhesion and vasoocclusion in mice with sickle cell disease.

Biography:

• PhD 1998, Banaras Hindu University
• Postdoc at Baylor College of Medicine, USA
• Instructor at Baylor College of Medicine, USA
• Assistant Professor at Baylor College of Medicine, USA
• Associate Professor at Regional Centre for Biotechnology, India