sumit sen santara

About

Dr. Sumit Sen Santara has ten years of experience on host pathogen interaction, molecular parasitology and bacteriology, CD8 T cell immunity, NK cells, and molecular mechanism of programmed cell death.
Leishmaniasis is still a major public health problem in many countries. Resistance to existing drugs has created demand for new drug targets. During his PhD research, under the supervision of Dr. Subrata Adak,Dr. Sen Santara characterized some novel genes, specific for the parasite, which can be potential targets for drug development against Leishmania. Dr. Sen Santara discovered a new enzyme, the soluble globin-coupled heme containing adenylate cyclase, which regulates O2 dependent intracellular cAMP generation. Dr. Sen Santara elucidated the crucial role of NAD(P)H cytochrome b5 oxidoreductase (Ncb5or) in Leishmania major survival and infectivity. He also studied the role of pseudoperoxidase from Leishmania major in peroxynitrite mediated protection.
Dr. Sen Santara’s post doc research, under the mentorship of Dr. Judy Lieberman, revealed that Granzyme B from killer lymphocytes cleave a set of proteins highly conserved in a broad spectrum of bacteria (Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes and Mycobacteria tuberculosis) that function in biosynthetic and metabolic pathways critical for survival under diverse environmental conditions. Key proteins required for protein (synthesis, folding and degradation are also Granzyme B substrates, including aminoacyl tRNA synthetases, ribosomal proteins, chaperones and proteins of the clp system. Since killer cells use multiple strategies to target vital pathways, bacteria are unlikely to become resistant to killer cell attack. Dr. Sen Santara also discovered that ZIKA virus infection induces ER stress in infected trophoblast cells which leads to downregulation of HLA-G and HLA-C resulting in decudual NK cell activation, degranulation and killing of infected trophoblast cells. He found that mice deficient in type I interferon signaling but depleted of NK cells are susceptible to ZIKA virus induced abortion.

Employment

• Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata Assistant Professor
  2022 - Present
• Boston Children's Hospital Postdoctoral Fellow
  2014 - 2021

Education

• Indian Institute of Chemical Biology PhD
  2009 - 2014

Projects & Funding

Projects & funding information is unavailable.

Publications (16)

• Power of Memory: A Natural Killer Cell Perspective
  Cells 2025 DOI: 10.3390/cells14110846
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• Publisher Correction: The NK cell receptor NKp46 recognizes ecto-calreticulin on ER-stressed cells (Nature, (2023), 616, 7956, (348-356), 10.1038/s41586-023-05912-0)
  Nature 2023 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06151-z
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• The NK cell receptor NKp46 recognizes ecto-calreticulin on ER-stressed cells
  Nature 2023 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-05912-0
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• Costimulatory CD226 Signaling Regulates Proliferation of Memory-like NK Cells in Healthy Individuals with Latent Mycobacterium tuberculosis Infection
  International Journal of Molecular Sciences 2022 DOI: 10.3390/ijms232112838
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• Decidual NK cells kill Zika virus-infected trophoblasts
  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2021 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2115410118
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• γδ T cells suppress Plasmodium falciparum blood-stage infection by direct killing and phagocytosis
  Nature Immunology 2021 DOI: 10.1038/s41590-020-00847-4
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• Decidual NK Cells Transfer Granulysin to Selectively Kill Bacteria in Trophoblasts
  Cell 2020 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.07.019
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• Cytotoxic CD8+ T cells recognize and kill Plasmodium vivax–infected reticulocytes
  Nature Medicine 2018 DOI: 10.1038/s41591-018-0117-4
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• Granzyme B Disrupts Central Metabolism and Protein Synthesis in Bacteria to Promote an Immune Cell Death Program
  Cell 2017 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2017.10.004
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• Control of catalysis in globin coupled adenylate cyclase by a globin-B domain
  Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics 2015 DOI: 10.1016/j.abb.2015.06.007
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