The main areas of interest of Prof. Singh’ s lab are understanding the mechanisms of carcinogenesis development to find novel targets which could be affected by natural agents, to inhibit cancer progression and metastasis. The laboratory’ s efforts have been largely devoted towards not only screening natural compounds/ chemopreventive agents for their efficacy, but also providing mechanistic insights into their mode of action.
Discovering and evaluating anticancer activities of small molecules (phytochemicals) and providing scientific basis (mechanisms) for their effectiveness in controlling carcinogenesis is a priority area of research. The goal is to develop mechanism-based non-toxic anticancer agents for their potential use in cancer chemoprevention and treatment. The lab though in its early years of establishment has done significant work in studying natural compounds with anti-angiogenic efficacies. The laboratory has established good in vitro, in vivo and ex-vivo model systems to study modulation of tumor angiogenesis by these plant compounds.
Evaluating these phytochemicals for potential synergism with existing, well-established chemo-and radiotherapy regimens is also a significant focus of the lab.Along with these studies, the lab also tries to understand biological processes, which get deregulated during cancer development including mitogenic, and cell survival signaling, apoptosis and DNA damage/repair.
Other than mammalian cell-culture and rodent models, we are also working on establishing other model systems includingDrosophila Melanogaster model, which are easier for manipulation and would give us plausible explanations or cues that can be extrapolated to derive an understanding of the carcinogenesis development.