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Laboratory of TIME
(Tumour Immune MicroEnvironment)
Welcome to the laboratory of Tumour Immune MicroEnvironment, where we explore the power of immunology to conquer cancer.
"Igniting hope, One Discovery at a TIME"
Research Theme
“The borders of 'Cancerland' begin to feel all-encompassing. In the past, entry was reserved for those with a diagnosis of cancer. Today, everyone, in one way or another, slowly becomes a citizen.” -Siddhartha Mukherjee
India is going to face a Tsunami of chronic diseases like Cancer, and we are all soon going to live in cancerland. There are going to be ~30 million (3 Crore) cancer patients in India by 2047, and ~57,000 new patients are diagnosed with colorectal cancer every year. In the last 20 years, there has been a ~27% drop in cancer death rates in the USA, whereas there has been a rise in the burden of cancer in India. Therefore, there is a need to change the strategy from “Heal in India” to “Heal by India”, and need to develop early detection biomarkers that can predict the disease progression and therapy response and identify the therapeutic targets to build affordable treatments that can increase the disease-free survival of cancer patients
Keeping these challenges in mind, we aim to build biobanks, identify biomarkers for early detection, determine the therapeutic targets, and develop therapeutic platforms for the management of breast and colorectal cancer (CRC) in India through precision medicine.
Our Journey
Our journey started in 2010 with research focused on engineering of self-assembled materials for biomedical applications, including drug delivery, antimicrobial therapy, and gene therapy (called as Laboratory of Nanotechnology and Chemical Biology (LNCB)). As we were able to develop some impactful biomaterials for cancer therapy (Published in Angewandte Chemie), it intrigued us to understand the impact of these delivery biomaterials on metabolism, especially lipid metabolism. Our studies showed that chemotherapeutic drugs alter the sphingolipid metabolism, which plays a key role in the response to therapy (published in ACS Central Science). During these findings, we got captivated to decipher the impact of these altered lipid metabolism on the tumor immune microenvironment (TIME). Our results showed that chemotherapy-mediated alterations in lipid metabolism bring changes in the macrophages and T cells in the TIME (Published in Science Advances). Our further studies showed the impact of chemotherapeutic drugs on prostaglandin metabolism and other lipid metabolic pathways. These findings brought many new questions to ourmind, like how the metabolic changes in cancer cells impact the TIME, how chemoresistance alters the cancer cell metabolism, whether the cellular metabolism of neurons impacts the TIME, and how microbes and cancer cells talk with each other through metabolites. Therefore, in the coming years, we would like to focus on the role of metabolism on TIME, especially colon and breast cancer. Therefore, these questions allowed us to move from the LNCB to the Laboratory of Tumor Immune Microenvironment (L@TIME).
We thank current and former students, as well as our collaborators, from whom we have learnt and will continue to learn.
Key Publications on Cancer Biology and Therapy
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“The mTORC2 subunit RICTOR drives breast cancer progression by promoting ganglioside biosynthesis through transcriptional and epigenetic mechanisms.” M. N. Ansari, S. Jha, A. Khan, K. Rajput, N. Pandey, D. Jain, R. Tripathi, N. Medatwal, P. Sharma, S. Datta, A. Kar, T. Pani, S. A. Ali, K. Cholke, K. Rana, V. P. Snijesh G. Mukherjee, SVS Deo, S. Basak, A. Mishra, J. S. Prabhu, A. Mukhopadhyay, A. Bajaj*, and U. Dasgupta, PLOS Biol. 2025, 23, e3003362.
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“Engineered Nanomicelles Targeting the Proliferation and Angiogenesis Inhibit the Tumor Progression via Impairing the Synthesis of Ceramide-1-Phosphate.” P. Yadav, K. Rana, R. Chakraborty, A. Khan, D. Jain, B. Aggarwal, S. K. Jha, U. Dasgupta, and A. Bajaj* Nanoscale 2024, 16, 10350-10365.
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“Engineered Nanomicelles Inhibit the Tumor Progression via Abrogating the Prostaglandin-mediated Immunosuppression.” P. Yadav, K. Rana, V. Nardini, A. Khan, T. Pani, A. Kar, D. Jain, R. Chakraborty, R. Singh, S. K. Jha, D. Mehta, H. Sharma, R. D. Sharma, SVS Deo, S. Sengupta, V. S. Patil, L. H. Faccioli, U. Dasgupta, and A. Bajaj* J. Controlled Release 2024, 368, 548-565.
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“A Localized Hydrogel-mediated Chemotherapy Causes Immunogenic Cell Death via Activation of Ceramide-mediated Unfolded Protein Response.” A. Kar, D. Jain, S. Kumar, K. Rajput, S. Pal, K. Rana, R. Kar, S. K. Jha, N. Medatwal, P. S. Yavvari, N. Pandey, D. Mehta, H. Sharma, D. Bhattacharya, M. K. Pradhan, R. D. Sharma, A. Srivastava, U. Agrawal, A. Mukhopadhyay, S. Sengupta, V. S. Patil, A. Bajaj,* and U. Dasgupta, Sci. Adv. 2023, 9, eadf2746.
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“Unique Sphingolipid Signature Identifies Luminal and Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Subtypes.” A. Kar, N. Medatwal, K. Rajput, S. Mandal, T. Pani, A. Khan, P. Sharma, A. S. Oberoi, G. Vishwakarma, SVS Deo, MK Jolly, A. Bajaj,* and U. Dasgupta, Int. J. Cancer 2023, 152, 2410-2423.
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"Bile Acid-tethered Docetaxel-based Nanomicelle Mitigates Tumor progression via Epigenetic Changes." V. Sreekanth, A. Kar, S. Kumar, S. Pal, P. Yadav, Y. Sharma, V. Komalla, H. Sharma, R. Shyam, R. D. Sharma, A. Mukhopadhyay, S. Sengupta, U. Dasgupta, and A. Bajaj* Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2021, 60, 5384-5399.
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“A Localized Chimeric Hydrogel Therapy Targets Tumor Microenvironment through Alteration of Sphingolipid Metabolism.” S. Pal, N. Medatwal, S. Kumar, A. Kar, V. Komalla, P. S. Yavvari, D. K. Mishra, D. Malakar, M. Pillai, A. Srivastava, R. D. Sharma, S. Sengupta, U. Dasgupta and A. Bajaj* ACS Central Sci. 2019, 5, 1648-1662.