Dr. Shikha S Chauhan is currently a Visting Scholar in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, USA. She has published papers in peer-reviwed journals like Carcinogenesis, European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry,  Medicinal Chemistry Communication, Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters, etc. Her primary research interest at Penn State is to investigate the pathway of methanogenesis in anaerobic archaea Methanosarcina acetivorans in the presence of Fe (III) and to study the role of superoxide reductase (SOR) in Methanosarcina acetivorans, a strictly anaerobic methanogenic archaea. Methanosarcina acetivorans contains homologs of genes encoding antioxidant enzymes suggesting that M. acetivorans can survive transient oxic conditions by reducing superoxide radicals and hydrogen peroxide suppressing oxidative stress. As a model system, he focus on Methanosarcina acetivorans , a versatile methane producing microbe which is found in such diverse environments as oil wells, trash dumps, deep-sea hydro thermal vents, and oxygen-depleted sediments beneath kelp beds. She uses a multidisciplinary approach of biochemistry, molecular biology, genomics, proteomics, and spectroscopy (NMR, EPR and Mossbauer) to address the scientific questions related to his research.

Dr.Chauhan has completed her doctorate in Medicinal & Process Chemistry Division, Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow, India. During her PhD, She successfully designed and synthesized a library of compounds targeting parasitic diseases (malaria and leishmania) and cancer. Some of them were found suitable for potential drug candidates. To achieve this goal, she synthesized highly diverse N-fused polycyclic heterocycles by multi-step synthesis including new efficient synthetic routes and  studied their activities and mode of action. In the course of time, she worked in a highly collaborative environment and have done some novel findings in this direction.  One of her major work was the development of novel chalcones that showed significant cytotoxic activity against breast cancer cells and published it (Bioorganic Medicinal Chemistry letters, 24 (2014) 2820–2824). Later she and her collaborators found that this novel organic molecule targets MDM2 and inhibits trail resistance in cancer. They published it in 2016 (Carcinogenesis, 2016, Vol. 37, No. 11, 1027–1040). Similarly, she has woked in the field of lesihmania and malaria also and have published them in various other reputed journals.Before, joining Penn State University as a visting scholar, Dr. Chauhan got her postdoctoral training from University of Pittsburgh and Penn satate University as well.

Research Interest:  Organic Chemistry; Medicinal Chemistry; Biochemistry; Microbiology; Chemical Biology, Spectroscopy.

URL: http://bmb.psu.edu/directory/ssc21