Dr. D. Karunagaran is heading the Department of Cancer Biology at the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology, Trivandrum. He has more than 35 international publications and written 3 book chapters and has guided 4 PhD students and 2 research associates. He is a member of several international and national professional bodies and has received the CR Krishnamurti Lecture award for the year 2003 from the Scoety of Biological Chemists (India). Dr. D. Karunagaran did his MSc Bichemistry in JIPMER, Pondicherry in 1979 and was appointed the same year as a Lecturer in Biochemistry at the PSG College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore where he continued to teach students till 1992. After his PhD in Biochemistry from Sri Krishnadevaraya University, Anantapur, he went to Israel to do his postdoctoral research at the Weizmann Institute of Science and then to MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, USA. He has made significant contributions in the field of signal transduction, mediated by epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFRs) and their ligands implicated in the development of human cancer. Dr. Karunagaran joined the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology, Thiruvananthapuram in December 1997. He has shown that the transcription factor, nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-kB) is constitutively activated in high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions and squamous cell carcinomas during human cervical cancer progression. Dr. Karunagaran has proposed that differential over expression of certain antiapoptotic proteins may account for the failure of curcumin to induce apoptosis in some cancer cells. Results from his laboratory suggest antiapoptotic roles for NF-kB, Bcl-XL and heat shock proteins such as hsp70 in curcumin-induced apoptosis. The laboratory has identified that NF-kB can also regulate epidermal growth factor-induced apoptosis by a similar mechanism. His laboratory has also reported a novel Smad 2 mutation in a human cervical tumor sample and loss of expression of Smad 2 and Smad 4 in different stages of cervical cancer progression and also the mutations of Smad 2 and Smad 4 in two of the six human cervical cancer cell lines analyzed revealing an important role for Smads in human cervical cancer for the first time.

List of the most important publications of Dr. DEVARAJAN KARUNAGARAN

  1. Ramachandran Rashmi, Santhosh Kumar and Devarajan Karunagaran (2005) Human colon cancer cells lacking Bax resist curcumin-induced apoptosis and Bax requirement is dispensable with ectopic expression of Smac or downregulation of Bcl-XL Carcinogenesis 26, 713-723

  2. Smitha, V. B., Vinesh Kumar, T. P., Deepti, A., Nair, A., Karunagaran, D., and Anto, R. J. (2005). Sensitization of taxol-induced apoptosis by curcumin involves down-regulation of nuclear factor-kappa B and the serine/threonine kinase Akt and is independent of tubulin polymerization. J. Biol. Chem., 280, 6301-6308

  3. Tessy T Maliekal, Ruby John Anto and Devarajan Karunagaran (2004) Differential Activation of Smads in HeLa and SiHa Cells that Differ in their Response to Transforming Growth Factor-β. J. Biol. Chem., 279: 36287-36292

  4. Tessy T Maliekal, Marie-Lue Antony, Asha Nair, Ramasamy Paulmurugan and Devarajan Karunagaran (2003) Loss of expression, and mutations of Smad 2 and Smad 4 in human cervical cancer. Oncogene 22, 4889-4897

  5. Ruby John Anto, Manickam Venkatraman, and Devarajan Karunagaran (2003) Inhibition of NF-κB sensitizes A431 Cells to EGF-induced apoptosis whereas its activation by Ectopic expression of RelA confers resistance J. Biol. Chem. 278, 25490-25498

  6. Asha Nair, Manickam Venkatraman, Tessy T. Maliekal, Balaraman Nair, and Devarajan Karunagaran (2003) Nuclear Factor-κB is Constitutively Activated in High grade Squamous Intraepithelial Lesions and Squamous Cell Carcinomas of the Human Uterine Cervix. Oncogene 22, 50-58.

  7. Anto, R. J., Maliekal, T. T., and Karunagaran D. (2000) L-929 cells harboring ectopically expressed RelA resist curcumin-induced apoptosis J. Biol.Chem. 275, 15601-15604

  8. Shao, R., Karunagaran, D., Zhou, B. P., Li, K., Lo, S-S., Deng, J., Chiao, P., and Hung, M. C. (1997)  Inhibition of nuclear factor - κB activity is involved in E1A-mediated sensitization of radiation-induced apoptosis. J. Biol. Chem., 272, 32739-32742.

  9. Karunagaran, D., Tzahar, E., Beerli, R. R., Chen, X., Graus-Porta, D., Ratzkin, B., Seger, R., Hynes, N.E. and Yarden, Y. (1996) ErbB-2 is a common auxiliary subunit of NDF- and EGF-receptors: implications for breast cancer. EMBO.J.15: 254-264.

  10. Karunagaran, D., Tzahar, E., Liu, N., Wen, D. and Yarden, Y. (1995) Neu Differentiation Factor Inhibits EGF Binding: A Model for Trans-Regulation Within the ErbB Family of Receptor Tyrosine Kinases.  J. Biol. Chem., 270, 9982-9990.