Journal of Antivirals & Antiretrovirals

Journal of Antivirals & Antiretrovirals
Open Access

ISSN: 1948-5964

+44 1300 500008

Shyamal Dilip Desai

Shyamal Dilip Desai

Shyamal Dilip Desai
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, USA

Biography

Dr. Desai obtained her Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Biochemistry from University of Bombay in 1981 and 1983 respectively. She received her Doctorate in Biochemistry from the University of Bombay in 1991. From 1991 to 1996 Dr Desai did a postdoctoral fellowship at the UMDNJ Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey. In 1996 she became a faculty member in the Department of Pharmacology at the UMDNJ/RWJMS. During her tenure she made a novel finding that ISG15 a UBL is overexpressed in many tumor cells and its over expression interferes with protein polyubiquitination and degradation. She also worked on the repair of topoisomerase I (TOP1) mediated DNA damage. She showed that one of the repair mechanisms for TOP1 DNA covalent complexes is through the activation of the ubiquitin/26S proteasome pathway. This novel repair mechanism is quite significant and may have implications in the resistance mechanism to the clinically used TOP1 directed anticancer drugs eg. Toptecan. In 2007 Dr. Desai joined the LSU HSC as Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology.

Research Interest

The roles of ubiquitin and ubiquitin-like proteins in cancer, Mechanism of tumor cell death and drug resistance. The roles of ubiquitin and ubiquitin-like protein ISG15 in neurodegenerative diseases.

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