Subhra Mohapatra
Professor
Dr. Subhra Mohapatra is a Professor of Molecular Medicine at the USF Morsani College of Medicine and a Research Career Scientist at the James A. Haley VA Hospital. She is a pioneering researcher, with a unique interdisciplinary background in chemistry and immunology. Her work over the past 25 years has been instrumental in advancing the frontiers of personalized cancer treatment, especially tissue engineering and regenerative medicine employing cell molecular biology and nanoscale technologies. In addition, her laboratory has focused on the discovery and development of therapeutics for traumatic brain injury and long-COVID. Her lab pioneered a proprietary nanofiber-inspired smart scaffold-based tumoroid culture technology (US patents 9,624,473, and 9,618,501) to amplify cancer-initiating stem cells. The platform has led to a line of cell biology products including three-dimensional nanofiber discs and micro-well plates for drug discovery research, which are being commercialized. More recently, this platform has led to a new paradigm of four-dimensional perfused tumor-on-chip technology, that provides an evidence-based approach to 'personalize cancer treatment'(US Patent 11, 884,906), which is being clinically tested. She is also a principal inventor of tumor-targeting technology involving an oncolytic virus, such as the respiratory syncytial virus (US patent 11, 607,426). This platform exploits the mesenchymal stem cells and combines their high susceptibility to the respiratory syncytial virus infection, and the tumor-homing properties of these cells, which when delivered to the lung seek out and destroy the tumor cells in the lung. Beyond cancers, she pioneered a microfluidics coupled in vitro model for the blood-brain barrier, which provides a significant tool to discover therapies for diverse neurologic disorders (US patent 11,607,426). Another of her key discoveries is the identification of CCL20- chemokine as a critical mediator of inflammation, which led to significant advances in our understanding of traumatic brain injury pathology and the development of novel nanomedicine approaches to drug/gene delivery into the brain (US patent 9,782,494) and to the eye diseases (US patent 11,752,220). The high impact of Dr. Mohapatra's research is evident from her extramural award of $20 million in grants/contracts, over 100 peer-reviewed publications in high-impact international journals, and 25 US patents (issued) including two pioneer patents, seven of which have been licensed. She is a Fellow of several Academies including AAAS, AIMBE, NAI and ASEM-FL.
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