Sandeep Agarwal
Baylor College of Medicine, TX·Medicine & Clinical Research
Scleroderma, also called systemic sclerosis, is an autoimmune disease in which skin and organs gradually scar. Scarring of the lungs, known as interstitial lung disease, is a leading cause of death in scleroderma, and treatment options remain limited.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Microbiology & Immunology
Pharmacology
- Topics
scleroderma
systemic sclerosis
SSc
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jan 2030
What they work on
- Determine whether cadherin-11 is needed in macrophages, type II alveolar epithelial cells or fibroblasts for macrophage recruitment and lung fibrosis, using mice with cell-specific Cdh11 deletion plus transcriptomic profiling.
- Test how much MafB, a gene-regulating protein whose activity depends on cadherin-11, contributes to lung fibrosis in cell culture and in mice.
- Use transcriptomic approaches to identify additional cadherin-11-regulated pathways that drive the development of lung fibrosis.
- Develop liposomes carrying an anti-cadherin-11 monoclonal antibody to deliver STAT3 inhibitors to Cdh11-expressing cells, and test whether they prevent and treat fibrosis.
More about the research
This scarring, called fibrosis, happens when cells lay down too much extracellular matrix, the protein scaffolding between cells. The excess matrix wrecks normal lung structure. The lab has identified cadherin-11 (Cdh11), a cell-adhesion molecule, as a regulator of skin and lung fibrosis. This project asks how Cdh11 drives fibrosis and how that knowledge can produce new drug targets and therapies.
Why it matters
Lung scarring kills many people with scleroderma, and few treatments exist. Clarifying how cadherin-11 drives scarring could point to new drug targets such as MafB. Liposomes that home to cadherin-11-expressing cells may offer a way to deliver anti-fibrosis drugs more precisely to the cells driving disease. This could help patients with scleroderma-associated interstitial lung disease.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Mengqi Huang
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Identify the DNA control regions (cis-regulatory elements) that regulate the TGF-β3 gene in skin fibroblasts from patients with systemic sclerosis.
John Varga
University of Michigan, MI·Medicine & Clinical Research
Map where CD38, an immune-cell enzyme that breaks down the energy molecule NAD, is expressed in systemic sclerosis patient biopsies, and determine its cell type-specific role in fibrosis using engineered mice and disease models.
Beiyun Zhou
University of Southern California, CA·Physiology
Identify how loss of the endoplasmic reticulum chaperone GRP78 disturbs mitochondrial energy production and biosynthesis in alveolar epithelial cells, and how this promotes pulmonary fibrosis, using AT2 cell-specific Grp78 knockout mice.
The school
Baylor College of Medicine: 38 labs on PI Pages, $881M a year on research, 115 research doctorates a year.
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