Goutam Gupta

After obtaining his MS in Particle Physics, Dr. Gupta obtained his MS and PhD in Molecular Biophysics from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.  His PhD thesis on “Conformational Flexibility of DNA” garnered him a national young scientist award in 1983.  After post-doctoral training in SUNY at Albany he began work at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1990 in Theoretical Biology and Biophysics. At LANL, he started working on the DNA repeats that are associated with diabetes and neurological disorders. Dr. Gupta’s group was the first to determine the high-resolution NMR structures of these DNA repeats and structure-function correlations to describe the mechanisms by which these repeats are abnormally expanded and cause aberrant expression of the associated genes and proteins leading to onset and progression of disease.  He also determined the high-resolution NMR structures of different gp120-V3 loops and performed immunological assays to show how subtle changes in sequence lead to neutralizing escape mutants.

Dr. Gupta has combined structural biology, immunology, and genome research to determine the mechanisms of action of pathogenic bacteria and their virulence factors and toxins. This knowledge led to the development of pre-symptomatic diagnosis and therapy of human and plant bacteria.  Currently, Dr. Gupta is also working on Alzheimer’s Disease to determine how the brain’s innate immune defense is compromised by amyloid formation and how it’s immunity can be re-engineered to prevent amyloid formation.

An engineered innate immune defense protects grapevines from Pierce disease.  A. M. Dandekar, H. Gouran, A. M. Ibanez, S. L. Uratsu, C. B. Aguero, S. McFarland, Y. Borhani, P. A. Feldstein, G. Bruening, R. Nascimento, L. R. Goulart, P. E. Pardington, A. Chaudhary, M. Norvell, E. Civerolo, and G. Gupta. March 2012. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Volume 109, Number 10, 3721-3725.

A Dual-Purpose Protein Ligand for Effective Therapy and Sensitive Diagnosis of Anthrax. Momchilo Vuyisich, S. Gnanakaran, Julie A. Lovchik, C. Rick Lyons, Goutam Gupta. August 2008. The Protein Journal. 27:292.

Design of Chimeric Receptor Mimics with Different TCRVβ Isoforms: Type-specific Inhibition of Superantigen Pathogenesis. Hong-Geller E, Möllhoff M, Shiflett PR, Gupta G. 2004. J Biol Chem. 279: 5676–5684.

Hairpins are formed by the single DNA strands of the fragile X triplet repeats: structure and biological implications. Chen X, Mariappan SV, Catasti P, Ratliff R, Moyzis RK, Laayoun A, Smith SS, Bradbury EM, Gupta G. 1995. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 92:5199-5203.

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) antigens: structure and serology of multivalent human mucin MUC1-HIV V3 chimeric proteins. Fontenot, J. D., J. M. Gatewood, S. V. Mariappan, C. P. Pau, B. S. Parekh, J. R. George, and G. Gupta. 1995. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 92:315-319.

Local and global structural properties of the HIV-MN V3 loop. P. Catasti, J.D. Fontenot, E.M. Bradbury, G. Gupta. 1995. J. Biol. Chem. 270. pp. 2224-2232.

Loss of a neutralizing epitope by a spontaneous point mutation in the V3 loop of HIV-1 isolated from an infected laboratory worker. Veronese FM, Reitz MS, Gupta G, Robert-Guroff M, Boyer-Thompson C, Louie A, Gallo RC, Lusso P.  1993. J Biol Chem. 268: 25894–25901.

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) antigens: structure and serology of multivalent human mucin MUC1-HIV V3 chimeric proteins. Fontenot, J. D., J. M. Gatewood, S. V. Mariappan, C. P. Pau, B. S. Parekh, J. R. George, and G. Gupta. 1995. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 92:315-319.

Conformational flexibility of DNA: polymorphism and handedness. G Gupta, M Bansal, V Sasisekharan. 1980. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 77 (11), 6486-6490.

Patents:

Biomarkers for the pre-symptomatic diagnosis of huanglongbing (hlb) in citrus and use thereof. Goutam Gupta, Eddie Wayne Stover, Paige Pardington Melinda Wren. US Patent 20170145478 A1. May 25, 2017.

Compositions and methods for the treatment of Pierce’s Disease. Goutam Gupta. US Patent 20090158470 A1. June 18, 2009.

Structure-based receptor MIMICS targeted against bacterial superantigen toxins. Goutam Gupta, Elizabeth Hong-Geller, Patrick Shiflett, Nancy Lehnert. US Patent 20050260222 A1. November 24, 2005.