Profile
NIbedita Lenka did her Ph.D. in Genetics from Osmania University, Hyderabad in 1992. Further, she pursued her research work as a postdoctoral research associate at the Temple University (1992-1993), the University of Pennsylvania (1993-1998), Philadelphia, USA and as a postdoctoral research scientist at the University of Cologne, Germany (1998-2001). She joined NCCS, Pune as a senior scientist in Aug. 2001. Ever since, she is working as an independent investigator in the cutting-edge research area of stem cells and development, and tissue engineering. She also serves as an Adjunct Faculty of Dept. of Biotechnology, SPPU and RCB, Faridabad. She was awarded with 91st Indian Science Congress Award for Scientific Achievements in 2002 and Samanta Chandra Shekhar Award in Life Sciences-2002, conferred by Orissa Science Academy in 2005, International Travel Awards, to name a few. Her research pursuits involve several inter- and intra-institutional and inter-disciplinary collaborations and funding support from various agencies (DBT, CSIR, NER-BPMC, Indo-Australia). She has contributed to various outreach activities for school, college, and university students and also faculty orientation programmes.
Current Focus Areas
Delineating the guiding cues (cell signalling, genetic and epigenetic modulations) underlying the cell-fate decision machinery (Neurogenesis, Myogenesis, Hemato-endothelial specifications and further differentiation) using pluripotent stem cells model. Fabrication of biomaterials for soft tissue engineering using pluripotent stem cells derivatives and bone tissue engineering using MSCs as the cellular source.
Selected Publications
- Aadil*, K.R., Nathani, A., Rajendran, A., Sharma, C. S.*, Lenka, N.*, Gupta, P.* (2024). Investigation of human hair keratin-based nanofiberous scaffold for skin tissue engineering application. Drug Deliv. Transl. Res. 14(1):236-246
- Bahir, M.M., Rajendran, A., Pattanayak, D., Lenka, N.* (2023). Fabrication and Characterization of Ceramic-Polymer composite 3D scaffolds and Demonstration of Osteoinductive propensity with gingival Mesenchymal Stem Cells. RSC Adv. 13(38):26967-26982.
- Kapoor-Narula, U., and Lenka, N*. (2022). Elucidating the anti-tumorigenic efficacy of Oltipraz, a dithiolethione, in Glioblastoma. Cells 11(19):3057.
- Govarthanan K, Vidyasekar P, Gupta PK, Lenka N, Verma RS (2020). Glycogen synthase kinase 3β inhibitor- CHIR 99021 augments the differentiation potential of mesenchymal stem cells. Cytotherapy. 22(2):91-105.
- Ramasamy, S.K., and Lenka, N* (2010). Notch Exhibits Ligand bias and Maneuvers Stage Specific Steering of Neural Differentiation in ESCs. Mol. Cell. Biol. 30(8):1946-1957.