Ashish Dhayani

I completed my Masters in Biochemistry from The M. S. University of Baroda and joined the lab in May 2013.

The first time I started working on hydrogels, I knew I wanted to work with them. Hydrogels are formed from those small, interactive amphiphilic molecules, which when added to water, form gels by self-assembly. Let’s call these molecules as gelators (because they gelate water). Once designed, these gelators can then be used for a variety of clinical applications pertaining to (a)drug delivery (that I am currently focusing on) for controlled and stimuli responsive release, (b) growing cells using these gels as scaffolds, (c) biosensors for disease diagnosis  etc. 

My area of research is in the design and development of hydrogel based systems for localized drug delivery in inflammatory diseases. Inflammatory disases show a highly fluctuating inflammatory immune response, and there is no drug delivery platform designed to address this need. Delivering drugs only when the inflammatory response is high remains a holy grail in the field. We have earlier developed gelators that respond to inflammation, and we are further palnning to designe more specific gelators targeting specific diseases. This makes my work highly unique along with addressing a huge unmet clinical need.  

What I like about the lab is uniqueness in a way that it fosters trust, care, mentoring along with an environment where we can educate and get educated ourselves. Every lab member brings their individual skill sets and we believe in working as a team for overall growth along with the development of the individual.

Apart from work, I like playing table tennis, photography, sketching and travelling.