Assistant Professor
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Education:
B.S., Chemical Engineering, University of Mumbai, 2000
Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, University of California Santa Barbara, 2006

Career Highlights:
Prof. Pankaj Karande joined the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department at Rensselaer in January 2008. Before joining Rensselaer, Dr. Karande was a postdoctoral scholar in the Chemical Engineering Department and Center for Cancer Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Karande has received numerous awards for his work including The Anna Fuller Fellowship in Molecular Oncology (2006-2007), Outstanding Pharmaceutical Paper by the Controlled Release Society (2005) and the Fionna Goodchild Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Mentoring (2004). Dr. Karande is an inventor on several patents in the area of Transdermal Formulation Discovery and Novel High Throughput Screening Platforms.

Research Areas:
Prof. Karande’s research program is focused on engineering peptides as novel drugs, drug carriers and multifunctional biomaterials for medical applications. Peptides play vital roles in various biological functions including membrane assembly, cell regulation and immunity. Inspired by their roles in physiological processes, the Karande Lab is evaluating the potential of short peptide sequences as therapeutics for cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, immune disorders and as anti-infectives against pathogens. The lab is also interested in their potential as sub-unit vaccines, immunomodulators and vectors for targeted delivery.

The basic paradigm in contemporary peptide design is based on mimicking and conserving structural themes, characteristic of a particular objective, that are available in nature. Although such techniques have shown some success they are inherently limited in their potential as they fail to encompass possible structural motifs associated with a broader range of unrelated functionalities. Additional limitation of these approaches is the confinement to natural diversities of motifs. Inclusion of synthetic diversities (non-canonical amino acids) in engineered peptide frameworks provides added flexibility in tailoring physical, chemical and biological properties. The lab is interested in exploring the functional landscape of synthetic peptides comprised of a mix of canonical and non-canonical amino acids. While there is evidence that inclusion of non-canonical amino acids can improve the therapeutic endpoint in vitro, the in vivo or physiological response to such constructs (immunogenicity, toxicity, half-life, metabolism, etc.) is unknown.

Prof. Karande’s lab combines the group’s core expertise in design of novel high throughput screening platforms along with the advances in parallel peptide synthesis to rapidly synthesize and screen large (O(1000)) peptide libraries designed from canonical and non-canonical amino acids for predefined biological endpoints. Rational and iterative screening of multiple libraries provides leading hits that are subsequently evaluated in vitro for toxicity, immunogenicity and metabolism in complementary high throughput screening assays.

The core technology platform of the lab is MultiPep RS - a versatile High Throughput Multipeptide Synthesizer (Intavis AG) that can synthesize soluble peptide libraries as well as cellulose bound SPOT arrays.

Selected Publications:
Karande, P., Jain, A., Arora, A. and Mitragotri, S. Synergistic Effects of Chemical Enhancers on Skin Permeability: A Case Study of Sodium Lauroylsarcosinate and Sorbitan Monolaurate, European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, 31(1), 2007 

Karande, P., Jain, A. and Mitragotri, S. Insights into synergistic interactions in binary mixtures of chemical permeation enhancers for transdermal drug delivery, Journal of Controlled Release, 115(1): 85-93, 2006

Karande, P. Jain, A. and Mitragotri, S. Relationships between skin’s electrical impedance and permeability in the presence of permeation enhancers, Journal of Controlled Release, 110(2): 307-313, 2006

Newsam, J. M, King-Smith, D., Jain, A., Karande, P., Feygin, I., Burbaum, J., Gowrishankar, T. R., Sergeeva, M. and Mitragotri, S. Screening soft materials for their effect on skin barrier function by high throughput experimentation, Journal of Materials Chemistry, 15(30): 3061-3068, 2005 Feature Article

Karande, P., Jain, A., Ergun, K., Kispersky, V. and Mitragotri, S. Design principles of chemical penetration enhancers for transdermal drug delivery, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 102(13): 4688-4693, 2005 See commentaries in Nature Biotech, 23:437, 2005; Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, 4:372, 2005; JAMA 293:2083, 2005

Karande, P., Jain, A. and Mitragotri, S. Discovery of Safe and Potent Transdermal Penetration Enhancers by High Throughput Screening, Nature Biotechnology, 22 (3): 192-197, 2004 See commentaries in Nature Biotech, 25: 1217, 2007; Nature Biotech, 22:165, 2004; Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, 3:112, 2004; Chemistry World, 1:2, 2004

Karande, P. and Mitragotri, S. Dependence of Skin Permeability on Contact Area, Pharmaceutical Research, 20 (2): 254-260, 2003

Karande, P. and Mitragotri, S. High Throughput Screening of Transdermal Enhancer Formulations, Pharmaceutical Research, 19(5): 655-660, 2002

Contact Information:
Pankaj Karande
(518) 276-4459
karanp@rpi.edu