Hepatitis Research: Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) is a major cause of chronic active hepatitis, hepatocellular carcinoma and liver cirrhosis. There is no vaccine available against this virus and the current standard therapy for HCV entails a concoction of pegylated interferon alfa (PEG-IFN a) and ribavirin (RBV), both of which are non-specific antiviral drugs. Although this therapy has shown some promising results, it is fraught with limited efficacy, resistance problems, poor tolerability and high cost of manufacture, underscoring the need for new and more effective therapy. The present focus of research is to inhibit the viral replication using siRNA. This is highly versatile, simple, straightforward and cost effective approach, which is able to significantly down regulate, the target genes in a sequence specific manner. This is a promising approach, which can overcome the limitations associated with the existing therapy. The main strategy in this study will be to deliver multiple short hairpin RNAs (shRNA) targeted against both the host cell factors and the conserved domains of viral 5' and 3' untranslated regions (UTR) and nonstructural genes through self inactivating (SIN) lentiviral vectors. The SIN lentiviral vectors unlike other vectors (adeno and retro virals) can effectively integrate even in non-dividing host cells and manifest lasting RNAi effect.

HIV Research: Among the HIV infected people mitochondrial dysfunction in hepatocytes and other HIV infected cells is a leading cause of cellular death. Several viral proteins such as HIV-1 Vpr and Gag interact with and alter the organization of the mitochondrial membrane. This may impair oxidative phosphorylation and electron transport mechanisms resulting in depletion of cellular ATP pool and accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Interestingly, presence of a high copy number of HIV-1 RNA has been reported in the mitochondrial compartment. The rationale for this accumulation is not well understood. Another pertinent question is the origin of HIV-1 RNA with in the mitochondria. These questions need to be addressed meticulously and carefully so that drugs directed to the mitochondria can be designed in order to contain the viral propagation in the mitochondria as well as sustain the mitochondrial integrity. This may significantly influence the ongoing treatment decisions of AIDS patients and aid in better drug designing and consequently improved management and control of AIDS patients.

Microbiology, Molecular Biology.

National Scholarship from Ministry of Human Resource and Development, Government of India, 1990.

1. Member of American Society of Microbiologist (ASM)

2. Life Member Association of Microbiologists of India

3. Life Member Association for the Promotion of DNA Fingerprinting and other DNA Technologies (ADNAT)

4. Life Member of Indian Science Congress

1. Binay Chaubey, Snehlata Tripathi, and Virendra N. Pandey (2007) Single Acute-dose and Repeat-doses Toxicity of anti HIV-1 PNATARPenetratin Conjugate after Intraperitoneal Administration to Mice. (Accepted in Oligonucleotide).

2. Binay Chaubey, Snehlata Tripathi, Jérome Désiré, Isabelle Baussanne, Dylan Harris, Jean-Luc Décout and Virendra N. Pandey (2007) Mechanism of RNA Cleavage Catalyzed by Sequence Specific Polyamide Nucleic Acid -Neamine Conjugate. Oligonucleotide 17(3): 302-13.

3. Snehlata Tripathi, Binay Chaubey, Beverly E. Barton, and Virendra N. Pandey (2007) Anti HIV-1 virucidal activity of polyamide nucleic acid-membrane transducing peptide conjugates targeted to primer binding site of HIV-1 genome. Virology 363: 91-103.

4. Harris, D. Zhang, Z. Chaubey, B. Pandey, V. N. (2006) Identification of cellular factors associated with the 3' nontranslated region of the hepatitis C virus genome. Mol Cell Proteomics. 5 (6): 1006-1018.

5. Snehlata Tripathi, Binay Chaubey, Sabyasachi Ganguly, Dylan Harris, Ralph A Casale and Virendra N. Pandey (2005) Anti-HIV-1 Activity of Anti-TAR Polyamide Nucleic Acid Conjugated with Various Membrane Transducing Peptides. Nucleic Acids Research 33 (13): 4345-4356.

6. Binay Chaubey, Snehlata Tripathi, Sabyasachi Ganguly, Dylan Harris,Ralph A. Casale, Virendra N. Pandey (2005) PNA-transportan conjugate targeted to the TAR region of the HIV-1genome exhibits both antiviral and virucidal properties. Virology 331, 418-428.

7. Emmanuel Riguet, Snehlata Tripathi, Binay Chaubey, Je´roˆme De´sire´, Virendra N. Pandey and Jean-Luc De´cout (2004) A Peptide Nucleic Acid-Neamine Conjugate That Targets and Cleaves HIV-1 TAR RNA Inhibits Viral Replication. J. Med. Chem. 47, 4806-4809.

8. Sarin BC, Chaubey B, Kallan BM and Sehajpal PK (2000) PCR: A tool in detection of M. tuberculosis. In Environmental Protection. Eds IS Grover, AK Thukral and GS Virk. Scientific Publishers, Jodhpur, India.

9. Dwivedi A, Chaubey B, Sarin BC, Mittar D and Sehajpal PK (2000) A new rapid method for the isolation of mycobacterial DNA. Ind J Vet Pathol 24: 87-90.

Mitochondrial dysfunction in response to HIV infection and antiretroviral drug treatment. Funded by Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Govt of India, New Delhi.

Dr. V. N. Pandey, Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Medicine and Dentistry (UMDNJ), Newark, NJ, USA.

Dr. Sanjay Shukla, Associate Director, Marshfield Research Foundation, Marshfield, Wisconsin, USA.