Patrick D'Silva | |
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| Born | India |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Known for | Studies onneurodegenerative diseases and cancer biology |
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Patrick D'Silva is an Indian cell biologist, biochemist, and an associate professor at the Molecular Chaperone Lab of theIndian Institute of Science. He is known for his medical discoveries related toneurodegenerative diseases and cancer biology. TheDepartment of Biotechnology of the Government of India awarded him theNational Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to biosciences, in 2014.[1]
Patrick D'Silva serves as an associate professor at the Division of Biological Sciences of theIndian Institute of Science[2] and heads the Molecular Chaperone Lab as its principal investigator.[3] His research focus is on the cell biological aspects of neurodegenerative diseases such asParkinson's disease andAlzheimer's disease as well as various cancers and his team is known to have made several breakthroughs in the treatment of such diseases.[4] In 2015, D'Silva led a research which identified that Hsp31, a stress responsechaperone, inYeast providedabioticstress tolerance to thefungus.[5] On further studies, he found out that the chaperone acts as adetoxifier by removing a toxic metabolite namedMethylglyoxal (MG) and regulatesreactive oxygen species (ROS).[6] This led to further investigations andDJ-1, a protein similar to Hsp31, helped to enhance natural detoxifiers such asglutathione (GSH) which in turn regulated the reactive oxygen species and this discovery promised to offer new ways in the management of some forms of Parkinson's disease.[4]
Later, D'Silva and his team furthered their research and developed ametal oxidenanomaterial, which when introduced into humans, acted similar to three major cellular antioxidant enzymes which regulated the level of reactive oxygen species inside cells.[7][8] This nanomaterial, made ofvanadia, exhibitedglutathione peroxidase enzyme activity, thus proving to be ananozyme and it was the first time identification that all three major antioxidant enzymes in one nanozyme.[9] This discovery is reported to have uses in drug development in cardiac disorders, and neurodegenrative diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease.[10][11] D'Silva's studies have been documented by way of a number of articles[note 1] andResearchGate, an online repository of scientific articles has listed 57 of them.[12] He also hosts several post-doctoral and doctoral researchers at his laboratory.[13]
TheDepartment of Biotechnology (DBT) of the Government of India awarded him theNational Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science awards in 2014.[1] In 2016, D'Silva received the CDRI Award for Excellence in Drug Research from theCentral Drug Research Institute.[14]
