Mr. Jaydeep Sharma
Ph.D. Scholar
Mr. Jaydeep Sharma
Developmental Genetics Lab
C/O, Dr. Sam J Mathew
Regional Centre for Biotechnology,
Faridabad, Haryana 121001
Mr Jaydeep Sharma has been selected for the Sun Pharma Science Foundation Science Scholar Fellowship - 2025 for Young Scientists in the field of Pharmaceutical Sciences. His award-winning work was titled, “A muscle myosin regulating mammalian metabolic homeostasis”. This work focused on the contribution of the skeletal muscle to mammalian metabolic homeostasis. In this project, he identified that the loss of a sarcomeric myosin protein in a pre-clinical mouse model resulted in initial muscle hypertrophy, which was followed by severe atrophy, musculoskeletal defects and metabolic dysfunction characterized by type 2 diabetes. At the mechanistic level, he identified that the Nuclear Factor Erythroid 2-Related Factor 2 (NRF2) signalling, a key cellular pathway for maintaining redox homeostasis, was drastically downregulated in the skeletal muscle of these knockout mice. Reduced NRF2 signalling in the muscle resulted in increased oxidative stress, causing increased DNA damage and mitochondrial dysfunction, confirming that NRF2 signalling is associated with the observed muscle and metabolic defects. Sulforaphane is a small molecule that is a potent activator of NRF2 signalling, which, upon administration to the mouse model, led to increased levels of NRF2 and target genes in the knockouts. Most of the skeletal muscle and metabolic defects exhibited by the knockout mice, including elevated oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction and insulin resistance, were rescued upon sulforaphane administration. Thus, this study confirms the potential of the NRF2 signalling pathway as a therapeutic target to treat muscle and metabolic defects associated with skeletal muscle dysfunction.