Autophagy and Metabolism

Dr. Dhruv Kumar is a Senior Associate Professor at School of Health Sciences and Technology, UPES University, Dehradun, India and his current research is focused on autophagy, cancer cell metabolism, tumour microenvironment, exosomes, mutational heterogeneity, cancer prevention, drug designing, NGS and COVID-19. After completion of B.Sc. in Chemistry from Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and M.Sc. in Bioinformatics from University of Allahabad, India, he has completed his Ph.D. in Cellular, Molecular and Industrial Biology from the University of Bologna (UNIBO), under highly prestigious fellowship, Indo-Italian Government fellowship. After his Ph.D., he obtained Postdoctoral training at the University of Kansas Medical Center, USA. During his Postdoctoral training, he worked towards understanding the molecular mechanism(s) of autophagy regulation and apoptosis in cancer stem cells (prostate, pancreatic and breast), focusing on the metabolic cross-talk between the tumour microenvironment (cancer associated fibroblast (CAF)) and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) via HGF/c-MET and bFGF/FGFR signalling pathways. He has also worked on structure based drug designing for several cancers, COVID-19, mutational heterogeneity in cancer. Currently, his lab is focusing on metabolic heterogeneity in solid tumours and structure based drug designing for cancer and COVID-19. He has published more than 100 research articles, reviews and book chapters in reputed journals. Shailendra Asthana is a Senior Scientist at Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI), India. He has more than 20 years of research experience in drug discovery, autophagy, and bioinformatics. The goal of his research is to improve atomic level understanding of protein-ligand, protein-nucleic acid, protein-peptide and protein-protein interactions using computational models and tools. Using molecular modeling, molecular docking and physics-based methods such as molecular dynamics simulations, Dr. Asthana and his research group focus on how small molecules interact with proteins and thereby modulate their function.

• 1. Role of metabolic dysregulation in cancer progression2. Role of Autophagy in Cancer Metabolism: Molecular Mechanisms3. Tumor Cell Metabolism and Autophagy as Therapeutic Targets4. Autophagy Regulation in Cancer: Current Knowledge on Action and Therapy5. Signaling pathways in metabolic dysregulation in solid tumors6. Metabolic Stress in Autophagy and Cell Death Pathways in Cancer7. Role of Tumor Microenvironment in Autophagy and Metabolism in Cancer8. Autophagy and Metabolic Regulation in cancer stem cells: molecular mechanisms and therapeutic applications9. Mitophagy in cancer and cancer stem cells: a role in metabolic reprogramming10. Combined targeting autophagy and metabolism for cancer therapy11. Designing metabolic target specific inhibitors for cancer therapy12. Effect of autophagy on immune cell metabolism and the effect of metabolites on autophagy activity