The Hardikar Laboratory

Anandwardhan A. Hardikar, PhD, received MSc in Zoology (Genetics) and a PhD in Zoology from the University of Pune.  After successful completion of his PhD work, carried out mainly at the National Center for Cell Science and partly at the WHO center, Catholic University of Louvain, Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium, he continued training in the field of pancreas biology and diabetes at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine, where he worked with Doris Stoffers.  He then went on to Sydney, Australia to work with Prof. Bernie Tuch at the University of New South Wales where he pursued his research interests in transplantation of insulin-producing surrogate b-cells.  Before joining the National Center for Cell Science, Dr. Hardikar has been a visiting scientist at the National Institutes of Health where he worked with Marvin Gershengorn, Scientific Director, NIDDK, NIH, Bethesda, MD. 

Research in this laboratory is focused on understanding islet biology and developmental biology of pancreas.  We work with human pancreatic duct, biliary duct as well as human fetal pancreatic islet cells to gather information that would help us understand the cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions, which are involved in development of insulin-producing cells.  Our understanding of progenitor cells generated from adult human islet of Langerhans and studies with the human fetal pancreatic progenitor cells would help in understanding stem cells that give rise to the pancreas.  In addition to human fetal islet progenitors, our present efforts are also involved in understanding the differentiation potential of human bone marrow derived and umbilical cord blood cells.   

 

Contents

*      Contact information

*      Publications

*      Current Projects

*      Laboratory group / PhD students

*      Collaborators

 

Work Information

Stem Cells and Diabetes Section, Lab # 12
National Center for Cell Science, Ganeshkhind Road,
Pune 411007, India
Lab: +91 20 2570 8150 

Fax: +91 20 2569 2259

E-mail: anand@nccs.res.in or anand@isletbiology.com

 

 

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Peer Reviewed Publications

 

·        Sahu S*, Joglekar MV*, Dumbre R, Phadnis SM, Tosh D and Hardikar AA,  Islet-like cell clusters occur naturally in human gall bladder and are retained in diabetic conditions Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine (In Press); *: equal first authors.

 

·        Joglekar MV, Joglekar VM and Hardikar AA (2008) Expression of islet-specific microRNAs during human pancreatic development.  Gene Expression Patterns (In Press)

 

·        Joglekar MV, Parekh VS, Mehta S, Bhonde RR and Hardikar AA (2007) MicroRNA Profiling of Developing and Regenerating Pancreas Reveal Post-transcriptional Regulation of Neurogenin3. Developmental Biology  311(2): 603-612

 

·        Phadnis SM*, Joglekar MV*, Venkateshan V, Ghaskadbi SM, Hardikar AA, Bhonde RR. (2006) Human umbilical cord blood serum promotes growth, proliferation, as well as differentiation of human bone marrow-derived progenitor cells. In Vitro Cell Dev Biol Anim. 42(10):283-6.

 

·        Gershengorn MC, Geras-Raaka E, Hardikar AA, Raaka BM. (2005)

Are better islet cell precursors generated by epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition? Cell Cycle. 4:380-382.

 

·        Gershengorn MC, Hardikar AA, Wei C, Geras-Raaka E, Marcus-Samuels B, Raaka BM (2004) Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition Generates Proliferative Human Islet Precursor Cells.  Science 306:2261-2264.

 

·        Hardikar AA, Marcus-Samuels B, Geras-Raaka E, Raaka BM, Gershengorn MC (2003) Human pancreatic precursor cells secrete FGF2 to stimulate clustering into hormone-expressing islet-like cell aggregates. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 100(12): 7117-7122. 

 

·        Hardikar AA, Wang XY, Williams LJ, Kwok J, Wong R, Yao M, Tuch BE. (2002) Functional maturation of fetal porcine beta-cells by glucagon-like peptide 1 and cholecystokinin. Endocrinology; 143:3505-3514.

 

·        Merezek S, Hardikar AA, Yajnik CS, Remacle C and Reusens B (2001) Intra-uterine protein malnutrition and diabetes: the role of sulphur amino acids. J Endocrinol; 171:299-308.

 

·        Hardikar AA, Risbud MV, Remacle C, Reusens B, Hoet JJ, Bhonde RR. (2001) Islet cryopreservation: improved recovery following taurine pretreatment. Cell Transplant; 10:247-253.

 

·        Hardikar AA, Nath BB. (2001) Chromosomal polymorphism is associated with nematode parasitism in a natural population of a tropical midge. Chromosoma; 110: 58-64.

 

·        Risbud MV, Hardikar AA, Bhat SV, Bhonde RR. (2000) pH-sensitive freeze-dried chitosan-polyvinyl pyrrolidone hydrogels as controlled release system for antibiotic delivery. J Control Release; 68: 23-30.

 

·        Hardikar AA, Risbud MV, Bhonde RR. (2000) Improved post-cryopreservation recovery following encapsulation of islets in chitosan-alginate microcapsules. Transplant Proc; 32: 824-5.

 

·        Risbud M, Hardikar A, Bhonde R. (2000) Growth modulation of fibroblasts by chitosan-polyvinyl pyrrolidone hydrogel: implications for wound management? J Biosci ; 25: 25-31.

 

·        Risbud M, Hardikar A, Bhonde R. (2000) Chitosan-polyvinyl pyrrolidone hydrogels as candidate for islet immunoisolation: in vitro biocompatibility evaluation.  Cell Transplant; 9 : 25-31.

 

·        Hardikar AA, Bhonde RR. (1999) Modulating experimental diabetes by treatment with cytosolic extract from the regenerating pancreas. Diabetes Res Clin Pract; 46: 203-11.

 

·        Hardikar AA, Karandikar MS, Bhonde RR. (1999) Effect of partial pancreatectomy on diabetic status in BALB/c mice. J Endocrinol ; 162: 189-195.

 

·        Hardikar AA, Risbud MV and Bhonde RR (1999) A simple microcapsule generator design for islet encapsulation, J. Biosci. 24 (3): 371 - 376. 

 

 

Chapters in books:

 

·        Hardikar AA and Gershengorn MC (2003) Chapter 51: ‘Stem Cells’ in 3rd edition of ‘Diabetes Mellitus: A Fundamental and Clinical Text’, edited by: Dr. Derek LeRoith, Simeon I. Taylor and Jerrold M. Olefsky.

 

·        Shukla R, Risbud MR, Hardikar AA, Bhonde RR, (2004) Chitosan and chitin derivatives in islet immunoisolation and transplantation.  In “Chitin and Chitosan: Opportunities and Challenges” Chapter 15, p 211-222, eds; Dutta PK

 

 

Invited Reviews:

 

·        Joglekar MV, Parekh VS and Hardikar AA (2007) New Pancreas from Old: Microregulators of Pancreas Regeneration Trends Endocrinol Metab  18(10):393-400

 

·        Hardikar AA, Lees JG, Sidhu KS, Colvin E and Tuch BE; Stem-Cell Therapy for Diabetes Cure: How Close Are We? (2006) Current Stem Cell Research and Therapy: 1:425-436

 

·        Hardikar AA (2004) Pancreas regeneration: Generating new pancreas from old. Trends Endocrinol Metab. 15:198-203 (July issue cover story).

 

 

Invited Editorial:

·        Hardikar A, (2004) Role of Incretins in Pancreas Growth and Development.  J Pancreas 5(6):454-456.

 

 

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Current Projects

 

Presently, we are beginning to explore 3 different cell systems in understanding their potential to differentiate into insulin-producing cells.  Major interest of the Hardikar laboratory is to understand the microRNA gene signatures during development and differentiation and understand epigenetic mechanisms of gene regulation.  We are mainly involved in working with the following cell types:

 

*      Human fetal islet-derived progenitor cells

*      Adult human pancreatic progenitor cells

*      Bone marrow derived mesenchymal cells

*      Umbilical cord blood cells

*      Human and mouse ES cell differentiation

 

Research facilities in the Hardikar laboratory include a human cell culture facility, rodent cell culture facility, human and mouse ES cell culture facility, real-time pcr (Applied Biosystems 7500 FAST), Calcium ratio imaging system (Till Photonics), Axio Observer Z1 with Apotome imaging, PALM microbeam 4 laser catapulting system and in vivo imaging facility.  Other accessible facilities through other lab investigators / central facility include proteomics and microarray core, flowcytometry core (BD FACS Vantage, MoFlow, Aria, Caliburs, Canto II) and imaging facility (LSM 510, TIRF, FCS, time-lapse microscopy).    

 

Research in the Hardikar laboratory is funded through intramural funding from the National Center for Cell Science and research project grants from the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India and the UK-India Educational Research Initiative (UKIERI).  

 

 

             

 

 

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Laboratory group / PhD students

 

Potential students who would be interested in research in my laboratory can e-mail me their CV along with names and e-mail addresses / phone numbers of 2 referees.  However, they should also look up the NCCS careers webpage for updates on interview dates for research / project students.  I am presently involved in supervising the research projects of the following graduate and project students:

 

 

For more information about individual lab members and their research, please click here 

 

 

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Research Collaborators:

 

*      Dr. David Tosh, University of Bath, UK

*      Prof. Bernie Tuch, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

*      Dr. Sushil G. Rane, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, USA

*      Dr. CS Yajnik, Director, KEM Hospital, Pune, India.

 

 

Research Support:

 

*      Dr. Vinay and Dr. Sheela Joglekar, Shree Seva Medical Foundation, Shirwal

*      Dr. Medha Patankar, Patankar Nursing Home, Pune

*      Dr. Shiwalkar, Tarachand Hospital, Rasta Peth, Pune

*      Dr. Ashutosh Hardikar, Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital, Pune

 

 

 



The Hardikar laboratory is located in Stem Cells and Diabetes Section of the National Center for Cell Science, an autonomous institute of the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India.  The center is located in the campus of University of Pune, Pune, India.  For an area map, click here.

 

 

 

 

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Last revised: October 29, 2008