Gut Immunology research
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I am Dr. Asif Elahi, have completed my Ph.D. from Department of Biochemistry, Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi, India in 2015. Currently, I am working as Scientist I at Department of Medicine, University of Alabama, USA and my research focus on molecular & cellular mechanism of inflammation driven colorectal cancer.
During my previous postdoc experience, I examined the effect of biotin deficiency on human CD4+ T cell responses to determine their role in biotin deficiency associated inflammation. My investigations revealed that anti- CD3/CD28 stimulated CD4+ T cells cultured in biotin deficient media secreted significantly enhanced levels of pro-inflammatory response by Th1 and Th17 cells with decrease in regulatory T cell function. Similar, response was also observed in inguinal lymph nodes of mice fed with biotin deficient diet relative to pair-fed controls.
Moreover, in vitro and in vivo results indicated that the increased inflammatory response was due to enhanced activation of the mTOR signaling pathway inbiotin deficient CD4+ T cells. In summary, these results demonstrate that biotin deficiency enhances the inflammatory responses in CD4+ T cell which may contribute to inflammation associated with biotin deficiency.
Currently, I am working as scientist I at Dept. of Med. UAB and the goal of my research is to understand the molecular mechanism of inflammation associated colorectal cancer.
In 2019, I joined Dr. Ahmed Chadli’s lab as postdoctoral fellow and here my focused on understanding the mechanisms of molecular chaperone called Heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). I conducted studies to investigate the inhibition of HSP90 induced immunogenic cell death (ICD) in triple negative breast cancer. I evaluated several HSP90 inhibitors to induce ICD for the activation of CD8+T lymphocytes to eradicate.
In 2017, I accepted a postdoctoral scholar position in Dr. Hamid M. Said’s laboratory at University of California, Irvine, USA where I have been studying the effect of biotin deficiency on human CD4+ T lymphocyte cell responses to determine their role in biotin deficiency associated inflammation and this study was published in Journal of Immunology in 2018.
To expand my knowledge as an Immunologist, I joined the lab of Dr.
Khan at Jamia Hamdard (Hamdard University), New Delhi, India to complete my PhD (2010-2015). During this tenure, my research specifically focused on evaluating the immunomodulatory potential of three mineral compounds named Pearl, Jade, and Serpentine. These three mineral compounds are being used in a number of formulations prescribed as tonic for vital organs by the practitioners of traditional system of medicine without knowing their chemical composition and mode of action. I first characterize these compounds to determine the physical and chemical composition and later evaluated their immunomodulatory potential to determine their mechanism of action.
Throughout my PhD I published 5 first-authored papers in peer reviewed journals and was a significant contributor in 5 other peer-reviewed publications. I participated as a presenter at several conferences including National Seminar on Metal Toxicity and Oxidative Stress organized by Department of Biosciences, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India in 2014; Trends in natural product research 2014, Olomouc, Czech Republic; National conference on Chronic Inflammatory Disorders, New Delhi, India, 2014; International interdisciplinary science conference on Bioinformatics: An Interface between Computer Science and Biology, New Delhi, India, 2011.
