Main profile

Renjith Mathew

School: 

Biological Sciences

Designation: 

Reader-F

Education: 

MBBS, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala, 2000

PhD, Indian Institute of Science, 2006

Specialisation: 

Mechanisms regulating tissue architecture in development and degeneration

Publications: 

1. Sigurbjörnsdóttir, S.*, Mathew, R.*, Leptin, M. Molecular mechanisms of de novo lumen formation. Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology, 15, 665-676, (2014).
2. JayaNandanan, N., Mathew, R., Leptin, M. Guidance of subcellular tubulogenesis by cortical actin under the control of a synaptotagmin-like protein and Moesin. Nature Communications, 5, 3036, (2014).
3. Mathew, R.,* Jia, W.*, Sharma. A., Zhao, Y., Clarke, L.E., Cheng, X., Wang, H., Salli, U., Vrana, K.E., Robertson, G.P., Zhu, J., Wang, S. Robust activation of the human but not mouse telomerase gene during the induction of pluripotency. FASEB Journal, 24 (8), 2702-2715, (2010).
4. Mathew, R., Mukherjee, R., Balachandar, R., Chatterji, D. Deletion of the Gene rpoZ, encoding the omega subunit of RNA Polymerase, results in pleiotropic surface related phenotypes in Mycobacterium smegmatis. Microbiology, 152, 1741-1750, (2006).
5. Mathew, R., Ramakanth, M., Chatterji, D. Deletion of the gene rpoZ encoding the omega subunit of RNA polymerase in Mycobacterium smegmatis results in fragmentation of the beta' subunit in the enzyme assembly. Journal of Bacteriology, 187 (18), 6565-6570, (2005).

Research: 

Biology is rife with compartmentalisations - topics, classes, segments, stages, groups; so on and so forth. These are mostly artificial boundaries set for human convenience. Studying development has classically involved studying the development of an organism from when it is a single celled zygote to when the structures necessary for its survival as a full organism have developed, or the development of tissues or organs from precursor cells, for example. Biological phenomena however operate in reality as a continuum of interlinked complex processes that start at the beginning and end at the end. What if developmental biology is taken beyond this somewhat abstract border? That is what we plan to do in our lab. The processes that drive the developmental programmes do not stop when we consider development to be complete. They continue to operate to maintain the structure and function of different organs and tissues post-establishment, till the death of the organism. For this homoeostatic function they constantly resist degenerative influences, a fight they gradually lose as the organism ages, resulting in degeneration of organ and tissue architectures.

Thus by continuing the study of development beyond "development" we hope to reveal how tissues and organ structures degenerate with age. This will help to understand the mechanistic basis for functional loss with age. We conduct these experiments using Drosophila melanogaster, a favourite tool of developmental biologists, as our model organism. Our research currently investigates the Drosophila respiratory system, and will progressively include more tissue and organ types. We combine classical methods of developmental biology with modern tools. This involves visualising organ structure at cell and tissue levels using advanced staining and microscopy techniques. After establishing the tissue architecture of young adult organs, we will analyse the changes occurring to these structures with age. Once the senile phenotype of organ structure is determined, we will employ genetic and biochemical tools to reveal the metabolic and genetic pathways that regulate or influence the senile degeneration.

Contacts: 

e-mail : renjith.mathew [at] niser [dot] ac [dot] in

Phone - 0674-2494215

Phone No.: 

+91-674-2494215

Room No.: 

412