Dr Vashe Chandrakanthan is currently leads the Stem Cell Bioengineering Laboratory at the Precision Medicine, South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute, The University of Adelaide. Dr Chandrakanthan’s primary research interest lies in the field of developmental and molecular biology of stem cells and their application towards regenerative medicine. His laboratory investigates fundamental questions, concerning how Aorta Gonad Mesonephros (AGM) stromal cells regulate Endothelium-to-Haematopoietic Transition (EHT) during embryonic blood development. This is of critical importance for advancing our understanding of 1) how normal haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) development occurs; 2) postnatal tissue homeostasis and ageing; 3) the pathogenesis of a range of blood disorders mediated by stromal cells; and 4) pathways to generate patient–specific HSCs for tissue repair and regeneration.

Dr Chandrakanthan’s research projects are ambitious, comprehensive, and intentionally not confined to one tissue type or disease process. His ultimate vision is to identify and understand molecular/soluble factors that regulate endothelium-to-haematopoietic transition during embryonic blood development and translate that knowledge into patient specific haematopoietic stem cell production using microfluidic bioreactor. Development of microfluidic bioreactor to harvest HSCs from endothelium could be applied to treat a range of blood disorders.

Dr Chandrakanthan has had postdoctoral training at the Victor Change Cardiac Research Institute and followed by establishing his Stem Cell Development and Tissue Regeneration Laboratory at the Lowy Cancer Research Centre, University of New South Wales. Dr Chandrakanthan completed his PhD in 2008 with a major finding: "activation of Trp53 in cultured and IVF embryos leads to a loss of viability, restored in Trp53 mutant embryos". This has significant implications for assisted reproductive technology: in vitro selection for viable embryos may unwittingly select for genetic or epigenetic changes to Trp53: an insight leading to improved screening against cancer predisposition in IVF practice.

As a postdoctoral fellow, Prof Richard Harvey mentored him at the Victor Change Cardiac Research Institute. There Chandrakanthan work led to discover a novel endogenous stem-cell population in the adult mouse heart – published in Cell Stem Cell (2011) and attracting interest in national and international media and the subject of a Cell editorial commentary.

At the UNSW, where his work leading to a new method to convert somatic cells into tissue regenerative stem/progenitor cells (PNAS, 2016) won the University’s NewSouth Innovations Award in 2013 and has yielded patents (US: 4/652552; Australia: 2012905513). Now this technology is translated to reprogram human adipocytes into cells into tissue regenerative iMS cells (Science Advances 2021), which is more relevant to clinical applications. Recently Dr Chandrakanthan identified an embryonic stromal cell population that can convert adult endothelium into haemogenic endothelium that can give rise long-term transplantable HSCs, which has translational value (Nature Cell Biology 2022). These are a direct outcome of Dr Chandrakanthan’s decade of research in early embryo development and stem cell biology – strong track record of developing new concepts in regenerative medicine, in particularly of how HSC production is regulated in the embryo and how this could translate into a microfluidic bioreactor based human blood production. His work is underpinned by a strong foundation in developmental and tissue regeneration biology.

If you are passionate about thinking outside the square to develop new tissue regeneration protocols, please contact Dr Chandrakanthan about potential student internships.