Dr Jayakrupakar Nallala

Ovierview:

I am a Reseaerch Fellow in the Biophysics group, and my research interests are to develop novel cross-disciplinary approaches at the interface of biology, physics and chemistry for biomedical and clinical diagnosis and prognosis of cancers (breast, colon, oesophagus, head and neck, skin) and other molecular diseases (Alzheimer's disease). I develop vibrational spectroscopy and microscopy based bioimaging approaches (infrared, Raman and Coherent Raman Spectroscopy) for biomarker discovery; detection, diagnosis and prognosis of cancers from cells, tissues and biofluids, in combination with machine learning, digital pathology  and clinical practices (histopathology&immunohistochemistry).

I am also a Principal and a Co-investigator in four different independent grants (from EPSRC and Wellcome Trust) in which I am developing new approaches based on Coherent Raman Scattering (Stimulated Raman Scattering & Coherent anti-stokes Raman Scattering) for rapid imaging of cancer tissue microarrays and for understanding the epithelial-stromal molecular dynamics in cancers.

Other applications involve material characterisation (microcalcifications & microplastics).

Present research:

I am a Research Fellow in a large £20M multinational CRUK Cancer Grand Challenge 'PRECISION' (https://www.dcisprecision.org/) project in which I am identifying prognostic markers of ductal carcinoma insitu (DCIS). DCIS is a precursor to invasive breast cancer and is not lethal. However, currently it is not known as to which women diagnosed with DCIS progress to develop an invasive breast cancer and which women remain with DCIS without developing an invasive cancer. Because of this uncertain progression, all women diagnosed with DCIS are given a standard cancer treatment (surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy) which in most cases might not be needed. To avoid the current unnecessary 'overtreatment of DCIS', I am specifically investigating the molecular and physico-chemical features of breast tissue and breast microcalfications on a large cohort of DCIS patients recruited from three large multinational clinical trials: LORD-The Netherlands/EU, LORIS-UK and COMET-USA. I am using multimodal imaging based on Raman and infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction in combination with novel data mining tools to identify biomarkers of DCIS progression.

Past research:

1. I was a post-doctoral Research Fellow in the £7.3M MINERVA project (http://minerva-project.eu/) funded by the European Union, in which I demonstrated a novel high-volume pathology screening approach for improved cancer diagnostics. I used a new generation infrared spectroscopic imaging based on spectral histopathology/cytology. I engaged with multi-national collaborations by bringing together concepts from optics, photonics, data mining tools, digital pathology and conventional clinical histopathology and immunohistochemistry.

2. I obtained my PhD from the Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne, France during which the potentials of vibrational spectroscopy as a cancer diagnostic tool were demonstrated via the concepts of spectral histopathology and infrared spectral barcoding in clinical colon tissue and tissue microarrays.

3. My initial research activities at CCMB-Hyderabad and ACTREC-Mumbai, India involved DNA sequencing and genotyping of single nucleotide and repeat length polymorphisms in specific genes and their association with breast, and head and neck cancers.

Education and Research Activities

2022-2024 Principal Investigator, EPSRC CLIRPath-AI Grants