The Vyavahare Lab

Saphala Dithal, Ph.D.

Education
Ph.D. Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Tokyo, Japan
M. S. Biosciences and Informatics
M. Sc. Microbiology
Graduate Intern, Massachusetts General Hospital, Massachusetts, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA

Research Interests
Currently, Dr. Dhital is working in two themes:

First, she aims to develop therapeutics that alleviate the pathogenicity and resrotes the mechanical strength and integrity of the vasculature in cardiovascular diseases including aneurysms. She investigates mechanisms of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) and its progress. She has demonstrated that protein based nanotherapeutic loaded with plant polyphenols, pentagalloyl glucose (PGG), reverses AAA in rodents.

Second, regulation of immune cells and inflammation plays pivotal role in many diseases including abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA), pulmonary obstructive lung diseases (COPD), and infection and immunity. Dr. Dhital is studying the regulation of immune cells and the causes and effects of inflammation in these diseases.

Shivani Arora, Ph.D.

Education
PhD in Biomedical Sciences University of Delhi, India

Research Interests
I am working as Postdoc in Vyavahare Lab. My research focuses on delineating and targeting the cellular pathways involved in pathogenesis of Emphysema, Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, as well as medial artery calcification. I extensively use molecular biology techniques and next gen sequencing to identify new therapeutic targets. I aim to use Drug loaded-Antibody tagged-BSA Nanoparticles to target these pathologies and to harness the potential of drug targeting for these pathologies that are also accompanied with elastin degradation. Dr. Vyavahare' unique/ registered antibody which efficiently binds to BSA-Nanoparticles and targets degraded elastin can be used to selectively tag the damaged tissue and to bypass healthy tissue

Dipasha Sinha

Education
M. Tech, Biotechnology and Biochemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, India

Research Interests
Tissue engineered scaffolds
Heart valves and conduits
Diabetic wound healing

Fatema Tuj Zohora

Education
M.S. Biomedical Engineering, Wright State University, Ohio

Research Interests
I developed an ex vivo model to study the behavior of macrophages in reaction to vascular inflammation, and my next goal is to investigate if we can prevent these macrophage-mediated inflammatory responses and consequent vascular calcification by using a polyphenol, called pentagalloyl glucose. However, my end-state vision is to formulate dual targeted nanotherapeutics to reverse vascular calcification and elastin regeneration in a mouse model of chronic renal failure.

Gregory Halsey

Education
B.S. Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The Ohio State University, Ohio

Research Interests
Understanding the pathogenesis of chronic inflammatory responses in elastin related diseases to develop localized nanoparticle-based immunomodulatory treatments

Tyler Gibson

Education
B.S. Chemistry, Xavier University

Research Interests