Page 35 - Annual report 2021-22

Annual Report 2021-22 |

IGIB researchers integrate clinical disease knowledge, model systems, and the omics approaches to
tackle important diseases of the cardiorespiratory systems. Integration of clinical data with assay
development for old diseases such as cardiovascular diseases and poor lung function was extended to
the challenge thrown by COVID19. The cardiorespiratory disease biology offered leadership in several
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key programs during the pandemic. The support of cellular and animal models of metabolic stress
provides platforms for early discovery in the areas of cardiorespiratory diseases. Some of the
highlights from research activities of this unit over the last year are:

● IGIB has been a pioneer in research of high-altitude adaptation. IGIB researchers are now
working towards a mechanistic basis for cardiovascular changes in hypoxia. Towards this they
are developing cellular models for hypoxia induced thrombotic changes.

● Using gold standard measures of lung function, IGIB researchers undertook a cross-sectional
study on lung function assessment in Indian children. In this study, the prevalence of
associated pathological changes of low lung function have been determined. This study
highlights the looming burden of low lung function in an otherwise labelled “healthy”
population of the country.

● IGIB scientists provided leadership in the area of COVID19 research through programs they
spearheaded. This ranged from data integration from clinical to genomic to host response.
Sero-surveillance at different stages of the pandemic as vaccination was rolled out, provided
a glimpse into the real-world efficacy of vaccines against infection.

● Using proteomics to identify diagnostic markers of cardiovascular diseases, IGIB scientists
have now gone a step forward in developing simplified assays that can be scaled up for future
validation studies. These have the potential to be developed into scalable diagnostic tests.

● Researchers in this unit are also working towards the therapeutic potential of mesenchymal
stem cells. In a study using animals that exhibit metabolic syndrome, IGIB researchers
demonstrate that metabolic syndrome blunts the mitochondrial donation capacity of
mesenchymal stem cells.