Our Science – Shukla Website

Suneet Shukla, Ph.D.

Laboratory of Cell Biology Transport Biochemistry Section Research Fellow 37 Convent Dr Rm 2120 Behtesda, MD 20892 Phone:   301-435-6302 Fax:   301-435-8188 E-Mail:   SHUKLAS@MAIL.NIH.GOV

Education

Degree:   Ph.D.
Field of Degree:   Pharmacy, Biotechnology and Life Sciences
Degree Institution:   Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
Date Degree Granted:   2004

Biography

Dr Shukla obtained his Bachelor in Pharmacy (B. Pharmacy)from Hamdard University, New Delhi, India in 1996. He continued his interest in Pharmaceutical research and pursued Masters in Technology (M. Tech) from Jadavpur University, Calcutta, India in 1998 with a specialization in Biotechnology. He joined Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India for his Ph.D degree where he worked on elucidating the mechanism of development of drug resistance in a pathogenic fungi, Candida albicans.
He joined Laboratory of Cell Biology, NCI, NIH in 2004 as a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Suresh V Ambudkar's group and continued his reserach on ABC drug transporters in multidrug resistant cancer cells. Currently, he is working as Research Fellow in LCB, NCI, NIH.

Research

Development of modulators/inhibitors for ABC transporters
In our efforts to screen and develop new inhibitors for the ABC transporters, we are exploring natural compounds for their inhibitory potential on ABC transporters. We have shown that curcumin isolated from turmeric powder, which is consumed daily as a spice in many countries and plumbagin, a naphtoquinone from plant origin, inhibit the drug resistance mediated by drug transporters. We are also working on tyrosine kinase inhibitors for their inhibitory activity on ABC drug transporters. The newly developed tyrosine kinase inhibitor AMN107 (nilotinib) inhibits the tyrosine kinase activity of the BCR-ABL protein and is an effective, frontline therapy for chronic-phase CML. We have shown that it is a high affinity inhibitor of ABCG2 function. We are characterizing its inhibitory activity on other ABC transporters now. We demonstrate that these inhibitors block ABCG2-mediated drug resistance and may increase oral bioavailability of ABCG2 substrates. Another area of focus for the development of inhibitors is the compounds from Developmental Therapeutics Program (DTP) chemical libraries. Based on structural similarity hits, several compounds from, DTP were projected to be potential inhibitors, our group is involved in a joint effort to screen the potential inhibitors of ABC transporters using these compounds (This is an ongoing work in collaboration with Drs. Susan E Bates, Robert Robey, Heidi Bokesch, Kirk R Gustafson, Curtis Heinrich and Michael Dean, NCI, NIH).

This page was last updated on 11/26/2008.