Cell biologist Dr Maddika Subba Reddy studies how proteins interact in cells at the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics in Hyderabad. He shared the prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in Biological Sciences for this year’s winner with Dr Ashwani Kumar of the Chandigarh-based CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology.
Dr Reddy is the head of the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics’ Laboratory of Cell Death and Cell Survival (LCDCS). He received the National Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science honours, from the Department of Biotechnology of the Indian Government in 2017–18 for his contributions to the biosciences.
The University of Manitoba awarded Dr Reddy a PhD in biochemistry and medical genetics in 2007. Junjie Chen’s lab at Yale University served as the site of his post-doctoral studies. Upon his return to India in 2009, he joined the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD), where he now serves as the director of the Laboratory of Cell Death and Cell Survival (LCDCS). Dr Reddy has been a senior fellow with the Wellcome Trust-DBT India Alliance since 2016. He is renowned for his research on cellular phosphatases and signalling pathways.
For each cell in our body to perform its job, proteins are necessary. Proteins work by “talking” to other proteins through the complexes they create after being synthesised in cells. In general, this is what Dr Reddy’s lab at CDFD is attempting to comprehend.
Disease can result from any change in how proteins interact with one another. Therefore, it is crucial to comprehend the subtleties of various protein complexes in cells in order to comprehend the causes of human illness development and progression.
Cellular homeostasis is the term for Dr Reddy’s research on the systems that keep cells in a delicate balance. Proteins must be broken down in cells once they have served their purpose. Protein buildup or protein damage is bad for the health of the cell and causes sickness in humans.
As a result, the ubiquitin system has evolved in all cells. A tiny protein called ubiquitin attaches to other proteins and serves as a signal for the associated protein to be identified by the cell’s machinery for protein breakdown. To comprehend the delicate balance of protein function in cells, Dr Reddy and his team work to comprehend how ubiquitin is connected to proteins.
The phosphatase system is yet another mechanism that cells have created. Inactive molecules are generally created during protein synthesis in cells. They must be altered after being synthesised in order to mediate their functions. To maintain the balance between active and inactive proteins, phosphatases and kinases are enzymes that add and remove phosphate groups from proteins, respectively. Any disruption in the equilibrium of phospho-proteins is harmful to cells and causes a number of illnesses, including cancer, neurological conditions, cardiovascular ailments, etc. In his laboratory, Dr Reddy studies how various phosphatases function in cells to keep this balance.
The NEDD4-like E3 ubiquitin-protein ligase WWP2, an E3 ligase, was discovered to be a regulator for the tumour suppressor gene PTEN by the team lead by Dr Reddy. This discovery is said to be important for regulating cell proliferation and, consequently, for preventing cancer.
Dr Reddy has written several publications, and 77 of them are included on ResearchGate, an online database of scientific literature. Dr Reddy, a former young associate of the Indian Academy of Sciences and an elected member of the Guha Research Conference, was given the 2017 NASI-Scopus Young Scientist Award by Elsevier and the National Academy of Sciences, India.
