Coers Lab Members

Arun Kumar Haldar Postdoctoral Associate 230 Jones Building Box 3580 DUMC Durham, N.C. 27710 Phone: 919.684.7108 Fax: 919.684.2790 Email: arun.haldar@duke.edu

I received my M.Sc. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Calcutta, Kolkata, India. In March of 2009 I received my PhD from the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. In my doctoral work I studied on a molecular level how selective compounds regulate the immune response to Leishmania infections. I was able to show that peroxovanadate compounds regulate T cell immunity to Leishmania and that these compounds could potentially be used in the treatment of visceral leishmaniasis. Additionally, I investigated how some strains of Leishmania can resist the antiparasitic effect of Sodium Antimony Gluconate (SAG) treatments. I was able to show that SAG-resistant Leishmania strains modify immune signaling events in dendritic cells and therefore prevent SAG-induced immune responses that are sufficient to clear infections with SAG-sensitive Leishmania strains.

In February 2011, I joined Dr. Jörn Coers's laboratory as a Postdoctoral Associate, to investigate how the innate immune response of a mammalian cell is able to detect and destroy intracellular vacuolar pathogens. The long-term goal of these studies is to develop alternative strategies for the treatment and/or prevention of infectious diseases.

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