I am an innovative and creative thinker with a broad background in translational medicine. I have over 12 years professional experience in multidisciplinary research with over 20 peer-reviewed research publications and five patents pending. My overall expertise includes in vitro and in vivo pharmacology testing of novel bioactives and dosage forms. I have developed various biochemical and cell-based functional assays. I have used various in vivo models to further test the efficacy of the bioactives or their dosage forms, e.g., obesity, diabetes, retinopathy, nephropathy, cataract, cancer. I graduated with a PhD in Biotechnology from Acharya Nagarjuna University (India) in 2011 and had four years postdoctoral research experience (NIN, Hyderabad, India) prior joining Majeti-lab in 2014. I was postdoctoral fellow during Dec 2014- June 2017, Assistant Research Scientist during June 2017-August 2020, and promoted to Assistant Professor Research, effective September 01, 2020.
Contact:
Email: raghu@tamu.edu
Phone:+1-979-436-0719 (Office); Mobile: +1-979-676-9711 (Cell)
Awards
2018 CRS T. Nagai Postdoctoral Research Achievement Award (TAMHSC Vital Record)
Peer-reviewed publications
- Systemic anti-inflammatory therapy aided by double-headed nanoparticles in a canine model of acute intraocular inflammation. Ganugula R, Arora M, Lepiz MA, Niu Y, Mallick BK, Pflugfelder SC, Scott EM, Kumar MNVR. Sci. Adv. 6: eabb7878, 2020.
- A highly potent lymphatic system–targeting nanoparticle cyclosporine prevents glomerulonephritis in mouse model of lupus. Ganugula R, Arora M, Zou D, Agarwal SK, Mohan C, Kumar MNVR. Sci. Adv. 6: eabb3900, 2020. This article is highlighted in Nature Reviews Rheumatology
- Curcumin can decrease tissue inflammation and the severity of HSV-2 infection in the female reproductive mucosa. Vitali D, Bagri P, Wessels JM, Arora M, Ganugula R, Parikh A, Mandur T, Felker A, Garg S, Kumar MNVR, Kaushic C. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 21, 337, 2020.
- D. Zou#, R. Ganugula#, M. Arora#, M. B. Nabity, D. Sheikh-Hamad and M. N. V. Ravi Kumar. Oral delivery of nanoparticle urolithin A normalizes cellular stress and improves survival in mouse model of cisplatin-induced AKI. Am J Physiol Renal Physiol, 317, F1255-F1264, 2019 [#equal contributing authors] (Selected for APS Select award)
- G. Kaur#, M. Arora#, R. Ganugula#, M. N. V. Ravi Kumar. Double-headed nanosystems for oral drug delivery. Chem Comm. 2019 55(33) 4761-4764. doi: 10.1039/c8cc10021g (Cover Article, back cover) [#equal contributing authors]
- R. Ganugula, M. Deng, M. Arora, H.L. Pan, M. N. V. Ravi Kumar. Polyester nanoparticle encapsulation mitigates paclitaxel-induced peripheral neuropathy. ACS Chem Neurosci. 10: 1801-1812, 2019 (Cover Article)
- M. Guada#, R. Ganugula#, M. V. Vadhanam, and M. N. V. Ravi Kumar Urolithin A mitigates cisplatin- induced nephrotoxicity by inhibiting renal inflammation and apoptosis in an experimental rat model. J Pharmacol Exp Ther 363: 58-65, 2017 (Cover article) [#equal contributing authors)
- R. Ganugula, M. Arora, and M. N.V. Ravi Kumar. Ex vivo rat eye model for investigating transport of next generation precision-polyester nanosystems. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 9: 25668-25671, 2017
- R. Ganugula, M. Arora, P. Jaisamut, R. Wiwattanapatapee, H. G. Jørgensen, V. P. Venkatpurwar, B. Zhou, A. R. Hoffmann, S. Guo, and M. N. V. Ravi Kumar Nano-curcumin safely prevents streptozotocin-induced inflammation and apoptosis in pancreatic ß-cells for effective management of type 1 diabetes mellitus Br. J. Pharmacol. 174: 2074-2084, 2017
- R. Ganugula#, M. Arora#, P. Saini#, M. Guada, and M. N.V. Ravi Kumar. Next generation precision-polyesters enabling optimization of ligand-receptor stoichiometry for modular drug delivery. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 139: 7203-7216, 2017 (Cover article). [#equal contributing authors)
- R. Ganugula, M. Arora, M. Guada, P. Saini and M. N.V. Ravi Kumar. Non-competitive active transport exploiting intestinal transferrin receptors for oral delivery of proteins by tunable nano-platform. ACS Macro Lett. 6: 161-164, 2017 (Cover article).
- P. Saini#, R. Ganugula#, M. Arora, M. N. V. Ravi Kumar. The next generation non-competitive active polyester nanosystems for transferrin receptor-mediated peroral transport utilizing gambogic acid as a ligand. Sci. Rep. 6, 29501 (doi: 10.1038/srep29501) 2016. [#equal contributing authors)