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Assoc Prof Lakshminarayanan Rajamani

BSc, MSc, MTech, PhD

Co-head, Ocular Infections & Anti-Microbials Research Group, Singapore Eye Research Institute

Research Interest:

Cell-selective antimicrobial peptides and polymers
Electrospinning of nanofibers for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine
Redox active antimicrobials for implants
Mechanism of protein aggregation diseases
Protein-Protein and peptide-membrane interactions

Research Appointments

Co-head, Ocular Infections & Anti-Microbials Research Group, Singapore Eye Research Institute
Principal Investigator, Ocular Infections & Anti-Microbials, Singapore Eye Research Institute

Academic Appointments

Associate Professor SingHealth Duke-NUS Ophthalmology ＆ Visual Sciences Academic Clinical Programme

Profile

Associate Professor Lakshminarayanan is a protein chemist. His area of work focuseson antimicrobial peptides and durable antimicrobial healthcare products. He received his PhD from the Department of Chemistry at National University of Singapore and was awarded the prestigious Singapore Millennium Foundation and ASEM-DUO-Denmark Fellowships. He relocated to the USA and embarked his career at the University of Southern California where he worked on intrinsically disordered proteins. He returned to Singapore and joined SERI as a Senior Research Scientist and was subsequently promoted to Principal Investigator and Deputy Head. He has received the Outstanding Scientist Award and Innovative Scientist of the Year 2017 award, and is a member of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) and the American Chemical Society (ACS).

His research group focuses on three divergent but related approaches to combat antimicrobial resistance: i) design of cell-selective antimicrobial peptides and their mechanism of selectivity, ii) expanding the life-span of antibiotics by outer membrane permeabilisation and iii) durable antimicrobial coatings for contact lenses and wound dressings. He also collaborates with peers in the area of selective targeting antimicrobial peptides/polymers (STAMPs), redox active antimicrobial coatings for implants, antimicrobial polymers for advanced wound dressings, mechanism of protein or peptide aggregation and thermogelling polymers as a vitreous tamponade.

Professional Appointments and Committee Memberships

Associate Professor (Practice Track), Department of Pharmacy, National University of Singapore
Vice Secretary, Organizing Committee, Protein and Peptide Symposium Society, Singapore (2018-present)
Chairperson, Institutional Biosafety Committee (2016)

Education

PhD (2003)
MTech (1997)
MSc (1994)
BSc (1992)

Awards

Innovative Scientist of the Year Award 2017, 2nd International Conference on Innovative Approaches in Applied Sciences and Technologies, Singapore
Outstanding Young Research Award for the year, Singapore Eye Research Institute (2013)
Outstanding Postdoctoral Research Award for the year (2nd Prize), Research Day, School of Dentistry, USC (2008)
Outstanding Postdoctoral Research Award for the year 2008 (1st Prize), Research Day, School of Dentistry, USC (2007)
National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) Fellowship, National Institute of Health (2005)
Denmark Fellowship, ASEM-DUO (2004)
Research Fellowship, Singapore Millennium Foundation (2002)

Research Studies

Redox active antimicrobials for implant coating (2016 - present)
Durable antimicrobial contact lenses (2015 - present)
Synergism between azole antifungals and blockers (2015 - 2017)
Durable antimicrobial wound dressings for burn injuries & infection control (2013 - present)
Broad-spectrum cell selective antimicrobial peptides for topical infections (2013 - present)
Cell-selective cationic polymers as biocides for ocular and cutaneous infections (2013 - present)
Electrospinning of multifunctional scaffolds for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine (2013 - present)
Branched peptides as sensitizing agents against Gram-negative bacilli (2012 - present)

Publications

Venkatesh M, Xi Q, Goh ETL, Toh TYJ, Barathi VA, Fazil MHUT, Varadharajan J, Ting DSJ, Beuerman RW, Chan LW, Agrawal R, Barkham TMS, Verma NK, Lakshminarayanan R*. Rational substitution of ε-Lysine for α-Lysine enhances the cell and the membrane selectivity of pore-forming melittin. J Med Chem. 2020 Apr;63: 3522-3537.
Zhou G, Deng X, Tian J, Fazil MHUT, Lakshminarayanan R*, Srinivasan R. SnAP reagents for the synthesis of selenomorpholines and 1,4-selenazepanes and their biological evaluation. Chem Commun (Camb). 2020 Feb;56: 1780-1783.
Parmar A, Lakshminarayanan R, Iyer A, Venkatesh M, Goh ETL, Lloyd DG, Chalasani MLS, Verma NK, Beuerman RW, Madder A, Taylar EJ, Singh I. Highly potent drug like teixobactin analogues against Staphylococcus aureus, MRSA, VRE in vitro and in vivo. J Med Chem. J Med Chem (In press) doi: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.7b01634.
Parmar A, Iyer A, Prior SH, Lloyd DG, Goh ETL, Vincent CS, Pallag TP, Bachrati Cv Breukink E, Madder A, Lakshminarayanan R, Taylor EJ, Singh I. Design and syntheses of highly potent teixobactin analogues reveals enduracididine not to be essential for lipid II binding and antibacterial activity. Chem. Sci. 2017 Oct,8:8183-8192.
Venkatesh M, Sridhar S, Fazil MHUT, Goh ETL, Orive G, Choong YK, Saravanan R, Beuerman RW, Barkham TMS, Liang Y, Baskaran M, Jhanji V, Loh XJ, Verma NK, Lakshminarayanan R*. Protective action of linear polyethylenimine against Staphylococcus aureus colonization and Exaggerated Inflammation In vitro and In vivo. ACS Infect Dis. 2019 Aug;5: 1411-1422.
Venkatesh M, Barathi VA, Goh ETL, Angaara R, Fazil MHUT, Ng AJY, Aung TT, Liu S, Yang L, Loh XJ, Beuerman RW, Verma NK, Lakshminarayanan R*. Cell selectivity of synthetic and biosynthetic cationic polymer. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2017 Sep 22,61(10). pii: e00469-17.
Leung CM, Dhand C, Venkatesh M, Ramalingam R, Lim FP, Barathi VA, Dwivedi N, Orive G, Beuerman RW, Ramakrishna S, Toh YC, Loh XJ, Verma NK, Choong AWC, Lakshminarayanan R*. Wound healing properties of magnesium mineralized antimicrobial nanofiber dressings containing chondroitin sulphate - A comparison between blend and core-shell nanofibers. Biomater Sci. 2020 Jun;8 :3454-3471.
Venkatesh M, Choong ACW, Dhand C, Lim FP, Tun AT, Sriram H, Dwivedi N, Periayah MH, Sridhar S, Fazil MHUT, Goh ETL, Orive G, Beuerman RW, Barkham TMS, Liang ZX, Barathi VA, Ramakrishna S, Chong SJ, Verma NK, Lakshminarayanan R*. Multifunctional antimicrobial nanofiber dressings containing -Polylysine for the eradication of bacterial bioburden and promotion of wound healing in critically colonized wounds. ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2020 Apr;12:15989-16005.
Dhand C, Venkatesh M, Barathi VA, Harini S, Bairagi S, Goh ETL, Nandhakumar M, Low KZW, Fazil Mhut, Verma NK, Loh XJ, Liu SP, Beuerman RW, Ramakrishna S, Lakshminarayanan R*. Bio-inspired crosslinking and matrix-drug interactions for advanced wound dressings with long-term antimicrobial activity. Biomaterials. 2017 Sep,138:153-168.
Dhand C, Ong ST, Dwivedi N, Diaz SM, Venugopal JR, Navaneethan B, Fazil Mhut, Liu SP, Seitz V, Wintermanterl E, Beuerma RW, Ramakrishna S, Verma NK, Lakshminarayanan R*. Bio-inspired in situ crosslinking and mineralization of electrospun collagen scaffolds for tissue engineering. Biomaterials. 2016 Oct, 104:323-38.
Obuobi S, Mayandi V, Nor N, Jiansheng B, Lakshminarayanan R, Ee PLR. Nucleic acid peptide nanogels for the treatment of bacterial keratitis. Nanoscale doi: 10.1039/d0nr03095c.
Lakshminarayanan R*, Tan WX, Aung TT, Goh ETL, Muruganantham N, Li J, Chang JYT, Dikshit N, Saraswathi P, Lim RR, Kang TS, Balamuralidhar V, Sukumaran B, Verma CS, Sivaraman J, Chaurasia SS, Liu SP, Beuerman RW. Branched peptide, B2088, disrupts the supramolecular organization of lipopolysaccharides and sensitizes the Gram-negative bacteria. Scientific Reports 2016 May, 6:25905.
Venkatraman A, Murugan E, Lin SJ, Peh GSL, Lakshminarayanan R*, Mehta JS. Effect of osmolytes on in-vitro aggregation properties of peptides derived from TGFBIp. Sci Rep. 2020 Mar;10: 4011.
Venkatraman A, Dutta B, Murugan E, Hao P, Lakshminarayanan R, Chan A, Pervushin K, Sze SK, Mehta JS. Proteomic analysis of amyloid corneal aggregates from TGFBI-H626R Lattice corneal dystrophy patient implicates serine-protease HTRA1 in mutation-specific pathogenesis of TGFBIp. J Proteome Res. 2017 Aug,16:2899-2913.
Anandalakshmi V, Murugan E, Goh ETL, Ting LW, Chaurasia SS, Yamazaki T, Nagashima T, George BL, Peh GSL, Pervushin, Lakshminarayanan R*, Mehta JS. Effect of position specific single point mutations and biophysical characterization of amyloidogenic peptide fragments identified from lattice corneal dystrophic patients. Biochem J. 2017 May,474:1705-1725.
Liu Z, Liow SS, Li Z, Tan MJ, Lai SL, Parikh BH, Kumar K, Gunaratne J, Veluchamy AB, Hunziker W, Laksminarayanan R, Tan CTW, Chee C, Zhao P, Lingam G, Loh XJ, Su X. Dual-function thermogelling polymers as effective endotemponade for retinal detachment repair and reassembly of vitreous-like body in-situ. Nat Biomed Eng. 2019 Aug;3: 598-6102019.
Marawari S, Poulsen A, Shih N, Lakshminarayanan R, Kini M, Johannes CW, Dymock BW, Dawe G. Intranasal delivery of a stapled relaxin-3 mimetic has anxiolytic and antidepressant-like activity. Br J Pharmacol. 2019 Oct;176: 3899-3923.