Profile
Dr. Rajesh Chandramohanadas began his scientific career as a protein biochemist. Subsequently, he gained expertise in the areas of proteomics, chemical biology and mechanobiology to pioneer a multi-disciplinary research program to unravel avenues for novel diagnostics, therapeutic, and vaccine development for infectious diseases. Chandramohanadas Laboratory studies blood cell pathologies arising from systemic diseases, oxidative/chemical damage and microbial infectious agents such as Plasmodium spp, causative agent of Malaria. An exciting new direction of our lab aims to understand molecular determinants of red blood cell tropism exhibited by Plasmodium spp, with over-arching implications in parasitic adaptations, zoonosis and progressive drug resistance.
Current Focus Areas
Plasmodia are host-specific at the organism and cellular levels, with varying degrees of preference to young blood cells. Our laboratory is interested in identifying molecular determinants of host tropism and explore their viability as drug or vaccine targets.
Our laboratory studies these processes using a combination of small molecule screening, activity-based protein profiling and quantitative mass spectrometry to unravel novel small molecule inhibitors acting via hitherto un-explored mechanisms and their cellular targets for translational interventions against protozoan parasites and pathogenic viruses.
Selected Publications
Malleret B, Abbas EH, Howland SW, Suwanarusk R, Ong, AS, Kosaisavee V, Chu TT., Sinha A, Gruszczyk J, Colin Y, Bertrand O, Lescar J, Maurer-Stroh S, Snounou G, Tham WH, Chandramohanadas R, Nosten F, Russell BM and Rénia L. CD98 is a Plasmodium vivax receptor for human reticulocytes. Nature Microbiology 2021 Aug;6(8):991-999.
Chandramohanadas R, Davis PH, Beiting DP, Harbut MB, Darling C, Velmourougane G, Lee MY, Greer PA, Roos DS and Greenbaum DC. Apicomplexan Parasites Co-opt Host Calpains to Facilitate Their Escape from Infected Host Cells, Science, 2009 May 8; 324(5928): 794-7.
Banas AM, Banas K, Chu TT, Naidu R, Hutchinson PE, Agrawal R, Lo M, Kansiz M, Roy A, Chandramohanadas R* & Breese M. (2021). Comparing infrared spectroscopic methods for the characterization of Plasmodium falciparum-infected human erythrocytes. Communications Chemistry (Nature Portfolio Journal) 4, Article number: 129 (2021)
Chu TT, Sinha A, Malleret B, Suwanarusk B, Park EJ, Naidu R, Das R, Dutta B, Ong ST, Verma NK, Chan JK, Nosten F, Rénia L, Sze SK, Russell B & Chandramohanadas R*. Quantitative Mass Spectrometry of Human Reticulocytes Reveal Proteome-wide Modifications During Maturation, British Journal of Haematology, 180(1): 118-133.
Dearnley M, Chu T, Zhang Y, Looker O, Huang C, Klonis N, Yeoman J, Kenny S, Arora M, Osborne JM, Chandramohanadas R*, Zhang S*, Dixon MW*, Tilley L*. Reversible host cell remodeling underpins deformability changes in malaria parasite sexual blood stages, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2016; 113 (17): 4800-5.