Priyabrata Mukherjee, Ph.D.

Major diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disorders, neurodegeneration, and diabetes and risk factors such as obesity, and aging are often studied and treated in isolation. Yet, each of them may be related, causally or otherwise, to one another. Therefore, facilitating crosstalk among these different disciplines fosters multidisciplinary collaboration and helps devise innovative and effective approaches to target those diseases.

To realize the full potential of team science, experts from disparate yet connected fields will be brought together to facilitate transdisciplinary dialogues under one common theme — “Web of Life: Connecting the Dots.” This collaboration will significantly impact and improve the way we engage communities, treat patients, foster collaboration and facilitate groundbreaking discoveries.
This two-day Web of Life Conference was hosted for the first time by the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences in Oklahoma City April 25 – 26, 2024.

The Web of Life Conference is chaired by Priyabrata Mukherjee, Ph.D. and Resham Bhattacharya, both leaders at OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center. For more information, click here.

The tumor microenvironment (TME) plays a key role in the poor prognosis of many cancers. However, there is a knowledge gap concerning how multicellular communication among the critical players within the TME contributes to such poor outcomes. Using epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) as a model, we show how crosstalk among cancer cells (CC), cancer associated fibroblasts (CAF), and endothelial cells (EC) promotes EOC growth. We demonstrate here that co-culturing CC with CAF and EC promotes CC proliferation, migration, and invasion in vitro and that co-implantation of the three cell types facilitates tumor growth in vivo. We further demonstrate that disruption of this multicellular crosstalk using gold nanoparticles (GNP) inhibits these pro-tumorigenic phenotypes in vitro as well as tumor growth in vivo. Mechanistically, GNP treatment reduces expression of several tumor-promoting cytokines and growth factors, resulting in inhibition of MAPK and PI3K-AKT activation and epithelial-mesenchymal transition – three key oncogenic signaling pathways responsible for the aggressiveness of EOC. The current work highlights the importance of multicellular crosstalk within the TME and its role for the aggressive nature of EOC, and demonstrates the disruption of these multicellular communications by self-therapeutic GNP, thus providing new avenues to interrogate the crosstalk and identify key perpetrators responsible for poor prognosis of this intractable malignancy… Continue reading.

Ann West, Ph.D. and Priyabrata Mukherjee, Ph.D. are among 564 scientists, engineers and innovators spanning 24 scientific disciplines being recognized for their scientifically and socially distinguished achievements. They are the only recipients from Oklahoma this year.

“Dr. West and Dr. Mukherjee’s election as Fellows of AAAS is a testament to the significance and impact their research has had in their respective fields,” said Tomás Díaz de la Rubia, vice president for research and partnerships at OU Norman. “With their help, and the help of many other researchers at the University of Oklahoma, we will continue to unlock our greatest potential as one of the nation’s top public research institutions… Continue reading.

The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) has named 168 prolific academic innovators from across the world to NAI Fellow status.

The NAI Fellows Program highlights academic inventors who have demonstrated a spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society. Election to NAI Fellow is the highest professional distinction accorded solely to academic inventors. To date, NAI Fellows hold more than 41,500 issued U.S. patents, which have generated over 11,000 licensed technologies and companies, and created more than 36 million jobs. In addition, over $1.6 trillion in revenue has been generated based on NAI Fellow discoveries… Continue reading.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) has announced the induction of Priyabrata Mukherjee, Ph.D., Peggy and Charles Stephenson Endowed Chair in Laboratory Cancer Research, Associate Director of Translational Research at the Stephenson Cancer Center, Professor, Department of Pathology, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, to its College of Fellows.

Election to the AIMBE College of Fellows is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to a medical and biological engineer. The College of Fellows is comprised of the top two percent of medical and biological engineers. College membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to “engineering and medicine research, practice, or education” and to “the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of medical and biological engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to bioengineering education.”

Dr. Mukherjee was nominated, reviewed, and elected by peers and members of the College of Fellows for “outstanding contribution on the biosynthesis of nanomaterials and their application in human health and diseases.”