Academic Qualifications:

(1)   Ph.D. 2004, Department of Chemistry, University of Delhi, Delhi-110007, India.

(2)   M.Sc (Biotechnology), 1997, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, Punjab India.

(3) B.Sc, 1995, Rohilkhand University, Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

Topic of Thesis: Investigation of polymeric micelles and nanoparticles as drug delivery carriers.

Professional Experience:

July, 2002 – December, 2004:   Post Doctoral Research Assistant at Deapartment of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, U.K. in the project entitled " Intracellular Targeting of Exchange-Protein-Directly-Activated-by-Cyclic AMP (EPAC)".

Recent Research Work: Until very recently the intracellular effects of cyclic AMP were thought to be transduced solely by cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) in most cell types. Recently , however there have been consistent reports that certain signalling actions of cyclic AMP are also mediated by family of guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEFs) called cAMP-GEFs or exchange protein directly activated by cyclic AMP (EPAC). Epac represents a novel mechanism for governing signalling specificity within the the cyclic AMP cascade. I have identified a novel protein binding partner for EPAC, light chain 2 of microtubule associated protein(MAP) 1A. This ability of EPAC to physically interact with LC2 provides a potential new mechanism for integrating signals from the cyclic AMP cascade to control fundamental cell functions.

List of Publications:

(1)   Mona Sahni, S. Mitra, R. Singh, A.N. Maitra, and S. Mozumdar, Ultralow size chitosan nanoparticles encapsulating pDNA as highly efficient non-viral vectors. Proceed.  Int’l Symp. Contol. Rel. Bioact. Mater. p7075-7076, 28 (2001), San Diego, USA. Chemical Abstract No: 138:112288 (2003)

(2)   Mona Sahni, S. Mitra, and A.N.Maitra, Modulation of intestinal uptake of copolymeric micelles nanoparticles by optimizing their surface hydrophobicity and mucoadhesiveness. Proceed.  Int’l Symp. Contol. Rel. Bioact. Mater. p5023-5024, 28 (2001). Chemical Abstract No: 138:112132 (2003)

(3)   I. Roy, S. Mitra, Mona Sahni, A.N.Maitra, and S. Mozumdar, Delivery of genes using ultrafine nanoparticles of calcium phosphate as non-viral vectors. Proceed.  Int’l Symp. Contol. Rel. Bioact. Mater. p7061-7062, 28 (2001). Chemical Abstract No: 138:112165 (2003).

(4)   Mona Gupta and Ajay Kumar Gupta; Preparation and Characterization of Gelatin Nanoparticles and Their Interactions with Human Dermal Fibroblasts in vitro. (2003) Proceed. Inter. Symp. Cont. Rel. Bioact. Mater. 30 (Abstract # 354).

(5)   Ajay Kumar Gupta and Mona Gupta; In vitro Cytotoxicity Studies of Hydrogel Pullulan Nanoparticles Prepared By Water-in-Oil Microemulsions. (2003) Proceed. Inter. Symp. Cont. Rel. Bioact. Mater. 30 (Abstract # 250).

(6)   Mona Gupta, Ajay K. Gupta, A.S.G. Curtis & S. Yarwood; Preparation and in vitro Evaluation of Pullulan Nanoparticles as Gene Transfection System. European Cells & Materials, 6(2) (2003), 39.

(7)   Ajay. K. Gupta, M. Gupta & A. N. Maitra; Polymeric Nanoparticles Encapsulating NSAIDs for Ocular Delivery: Corneal Penetration and Polymorphonuclear Leukocyte Migration Studies. European Cells & Materials, 6(2) (2003), 40.

(8)   Ajay Kumar Gupta, Catherin Berry, Mona Gupta and Adam S.G. Curtis, (2003); Receptor Mediated Targeting of Magnetic Nanoparticles Using Insulin as a Surface Ligand to Prevent Endocytosis. IEEE Transactions on NanoBioscience, 2(4), 255-261.

(9)   Ajay Kumar Gupta, Mona Gupta, Stephen J. Yarwood and Adam S.G. Curtis, (2004); Effect of cellular uptake of gelatin nanoparticles on adhesion, morphology and cytoskeleton organisation of human fibroblasts, J. Cont. Rel., 95(2), 197-207.

(10)            Mona Gupta, Ajay Kumar Gupta, (2004), In vitro cytotoxicity studies of hydrogel pullulan nanoparticles prepared by aot/n-hexane micellar system. J. Pharm. Pharmaceut. Sci. 7(1):38-46.

(11) Mona Gupta and Ajay Kumar Gupta, (2004); Hydrogel Pullulan Nanoparticles Encapsulating pBUDLacZ Plasmid As An Efficient Gene Delivery Carrier,  Journal of Controlled Release, 99(1), 157-166.         

(12)      Maria M. Magiera, Mona Gupta, Catherine J. Rundell, Niliema Satish, Isabelle Ernens, Friedrich Propst and Stephen J. Yarwood, (2004), Exchange Protein Activated by Cyclic AMP (EPAC) Interacts with the Light Chain (LC) 2 of MAP1A; 382(Pt 3):803-10.

(13) Ajay Kumar Gupta and Mona Gupta, (2005); Cytotoxicity Suppression and Cellular Uptake Enhancement of Surface Modified Magnetic Nanoparticles, Biomaterials, 26(13), 1565-1573.

(14) Mona Gupta and Stephen Yarwood (2005); MAP1A Light Chain (LC) 2 Interacts with Exchange Protein Activated by Cyclic AMP 1 (EPAC1) to Enhance Rap1 GTPase Activity and Cell Adhesion, J Biol Chem., Vol. 280, Issue 9, 8109-8116. 

(15) Ajay Kumar Gupta and Mona Gupta; (2005); Synthesis and Surface Engineering of Iron oxide Nanoparticles for Biomedical Applications. Biomaterials, 26(18),pp 3995-4021 .

(16) Ajay Kumar Gupta, Mona Gupta and Amarnath Maitra,  (2004), Copolymeric Micelles encapsulating indomethacin and nimesulide as potential ocular carriers (Communicated to European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences).

(17) Ajay Kumar Gupta, Mona Gupta and Amarnath Maitra,  (2004), Pilocarpine prodrug encapsulated in copolymeric Micelles for improved glaucoma therapy. (Communicated to Journal of Controlled Release).

(18) Ajay Kumar Gupta, Mona Gupta and Amarnath Maitra,  (2004), Smart hydrogel copolymeric micelles for ocular delivery: corneal penetration and systemic absorption studies. (Under preparation)

(19) Ajay Kumar Gupta and Mona Gupta,  (2004), Preparation and characterization of temperature sensitive copolymeric micelles for drug delivery. (Under preparation)

(20) Mona Sahni, Ajay Kumar Gupta and Amarnath Maitra, (2004), Modulation of intestinal uptake of copolymeric micelles nanoparticles by optimizing their surface hydrophobicity and mucoadhesiveness (Communicated to Pharmaceutical Research).

Patents:

(1)   Amarnath Maitra, Susmita Mitra and Mona Sahni (1999), Formulations of Amphotericin-B and other polyene antibiotics entrapped into nanoparticles of polymeric micelles, Process for preparing the same and the use thereof. (Indian Patent No. 190580)

(Technology transferred  to Shantha Biotechnics Pvt. Ltd., Hyderabad, India)

Achievements and Awards:

(1)   Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) organized by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, in 1997 with percentile score 94.08.

(2)   Joint Council of Scientific and Industrial Research -University Grant Commission (CSIR-UGC) National Eligibility Test (NET) for Lectureship, December,1997.

List of Projects:

(1)    Two months project in Centre for Biochemical Technology, Delhi, India entitled        “Solid State Synthesis of HIV peptide” and another project entitled “Extraction and Purification of Glutamate dehydrogenase enzyme from Bovine liver” during M.Sc.

(2)    Six months project from Department of Biotechnology, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, India entitled “ Detection of immunodominant Mycobacterial protein(s) in urine of sputum positive and culture positive Tuberculosis patients.