SM

Madhusudana Girija Sanal

Also known as: Sanal MG

Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, Yeshiva University Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Jawaharlal Nehru University, University of Calicut

ORCID iD 0000-0003-0007-5718
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About

Sanal Madhusudana Girija started his early career as a medical doctor before joining the Ph.D. program to start his active research career. He was awarded CSIR-NET-Junior and Senior Research Fellowships. He was trained under Prof. Shiv Kumar Sarin, a pioneer in the field of gastroenterology, at the Special Center for Molecular Medicine, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and the out-patient clinics of GB Pant Hospital, New Delhi limited to Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD), Diabetes Mellitus Type-2 and cirrhosis. During his doctoral period, he gained good experience in applied aspects of clinical statistics, cell and molecular biology, and gene expression studies and earned his Ph.D. from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He was also trained at National Center for Cell Sciences (Dr. ‪Anandwardhan Hardikar's lab), Pune, and National Center for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore, under Prof. Mitradas Panicker, Ph.D. an expert in molecular biology, stem cells, and neurobiology. He has gained experience in stem cell biology from NCBS. He developed an aptitude for bio-engineering and bio-materials, and he was involved in a project on the bio-artificial liver in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology -Kanpur. He worked as the Senior Research Officer at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS), New Delhi. During this period he went to Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, Berlin, Germany, in the lab of Prof. Dr. Michael Bader, as a visiting fellow. Exploring the possibility of developing a human liver bud in the chimpanzee through tetraploid complementation. Theoretical exploration (Refer: Sanal MG, Future of liver transplantation: non-human primates for patient-specific organs from induced pluripotent stem cells. World journal of gastroenterology: WJG 17 (32), 3684). By the end of this year, he moved to Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AECOM), New York. He did three years of post-doctoral fellowship with Dr. Chandan Guha, MBBS, Ph.D., (Vice-Chair, Department of Radiation Oncology) who is known for developing a preparative radiation regimen for hepatocyte transplantation and Dr. Roy-Chowdhury (Marion Bessin Liver Research Center) who is the Director of Gene Therapy Facility , Dr. Craig Branch (Director, Magnetic Resonance Imaging Research Facility) and Dr. John Condeelis (Director, Biophotonics) at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York. There he learned hepatocyte transplantation in rodent models of inherited liver diseases. His aim was to repopulate rodent liver with induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) derived hepatocyte-like cells (i-Hep). He tried to focus host liver radiation on facilitating engraftment and repopulation of transplanted cells. The transplanted cells were tracked in real-time over weeks using multi-photon microscopy and Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopic imaging techniques. In the summer of 2015, without finishing the work, he moved back to India to join the Institute for Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS), New Delhi, a Research University dedicated to the study of the liver,(an autonomous body under the Government of NCT) as an Assistant Professor at the newly established Department of Cellular & Molecular Medicine [which might not have been the best decision as he realized later (but who knows!)]. He went to Institut Pasteur, Rue du Dr. Roux, Paris in 2017 to work with Prof. Shahragim Tajbakhsh, heading the Developmental Biology lab, who had immense experience during his postdoctoral work on mouse embryo manipulation. He returned to ILBS to resume his duties the same year. In 2019, he received the Indo-US GETIN fellowship which enabled him another post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Florida on the application of Adeno Associated Virus in gene editing using CRISPR-Cas9 under Prof. Arun Srivastava, Division Chief, George H. Kitzman Professor, Division of Cellular & Molecular Therapy in the Departments of Pediatrics, and Molecular Genetics & Microbiology, and Powell Gene Therapy Center. This experience added a few more powerful gene manipulation tools to his armamentarium.

His current focus (Really? The reality being his focus is not better than that of a kid collecting shells on the seashore and his interests are unsettled to date !) is on gene and cell therapy in liver diseases. He wants to remain pluripotent and open to possibilities and changes! Doors Open!

Employment

  • Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences Assistant Professor
    2015 - Present
  • Yeshiva University Albert Einstein College of Medicine
    2011 - Present

Education

  • Jawaharlal Nehru University PhD
    2003 - 2008
  • University of Calicut MBBS
    1995 - 2001

Projects & Funding

Projects & funding information is unavailable.

Publications (37)