Smiti Vaid Gupta

Smiti Vaid Gupta

I have had the privilege to make progressive contributions both in teaching and research, specifically in the area of nutrition, disease and metabolomics. In spite of the challenging economic environment, I have created a successful and sustainable research program, with substantial external funding, a respectable publication record and numerous presentations at local, national and international settings. This has been accomplished along with course and curriculum development,and considerable service at the departmental, university and community levels.

By educating, close mentoring, instilling enthusiasm and encouraging a team spirit, my team and I have enjoyed an active, diverse, fun and productive laboratory environment. I have successfully trained and graduated nine Ph.D., 20 M.S. students, together with mentoring a host of undergraduate (> 40) students who worked in my laboratory on directed research projects, honors thesis or to gain research experience.

In addition, we have been able to serve the community by hosting, training and perhaps inspiring (!) high school students over the summer semesters from various communities in Metro Detroit.

Research interest(s)/area of expertise

Metabolomics in nutrition and disease

The interdisciplinary approach towards my research interests encompasses and connects the diversity of my academic background (MS, chemistry; PhD, Nutrition and Food Science, Postdoctoral/biotech industry experience, lipoprotein metabolism, oxidative stress and inflammation). Thus, my team investigates the effect of dietary bioactive compounds including curcumin, tocotrienols, garcinol and palm polyphenolics in the potential prevention and/or treatment of disease progression. Metabolomics is inculcated into my research matrix to scrutinize the efficacy of the bioactive compounds in the respective disease models. In addition, it serves as a sophisticated tool for the development of potential non-invasive, early risk biomarkers of disease or its progression. Non-omic methods including gene and protein expression analysis, microRNA profile modulation are also evaluated and correlated with changes in the metabolomic profiles to get a deeper mechanistic understanding.

Metabolomics: My team uses 1H NMR spectroscopy in tandem with the power of multivariate analyses, including Principal component analysis (PCA), PLSDA, OPLS. Multiple regression analysis is also used for correlation of metabolomics with genomics or other omics data. We have optimized methods for plasma (human, rodent), urine (human, rodent), cell culture extracts (human, yeast), biological tissue extract. 

Disease models investigated: Our research has been focused on lung and pancreatic cancer and more recently on Alzheimer's Disease. Both invitro, human cancer cell lines and invivo models of disease including mice, rats, hamster models have been utilized to evaluate various aspects of the research questions. 

Collaborative work includes metabolomic analysis of samples from clinical studies (Sarcodoisis lung disease, renal disease, neonatatal patients), yeast cultures and drosophylla fly extracts. In this way, I have been been able to extend my expertise to the research community.

Research

Collaborative work

Wayne State University

• Miriam Greenberg, Department of Biology 2015 - ongoing. Metabolomic analysis of yeast and mammalian cells with mutations representing Barth syndrome. 
• Lori Pile, Department of Biology 2015- Studying role of Sin3 histone modifying enzyme complex in metabolism 
• Lobela Samavati, Department of Internal Medicine 2014 - Investigating change in metabolomics profiles in Sarcoidosis Patients. 
• Robert Arking, Department of Biology. 2010 – ongoing. Effect of oil palm phenolics in Drosophyla fly model 
• Pramod Khosla, Department of Nutrition and Food Science.  Investigation of metabolomics profile in chronic hemodialysis patients (under auspices of clinical grant from MPOB with Dr. Khosla as PI) 2015 - ongoing.
• Ray Bahado-Singh, Department of Obsetetrics/Gynecology, School of Medicine/Hutzel Hospital. Preclampsia and change in metabolomic profile in human population, 2011

At Other Institutions

• Andrew Muntean, University of Michigan, 2022
• Kumbar Lal, Henry Ford Health Systems: Investing changes in metabolomic profiles of hemodialysis patients with fistula. 2018
• Maria Luz Fernandez, Department of Nutrition, University of Connecticut. Conducted metabolomic analyses on human urine samples, 2008 (Nutrition & Cardiovascular disease).
• Denis Callewaert, Oxford Biomedical Research, Rochester Hills, MI.  
• Peter Bodary, University of Michigan. Metabolomic analysis of mutant mice, 2009.  
• University of Kebangsaan (National University of Malaysia), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Invited to teach a 2 week course on Metabolomics in June 2011, 2013.

Education

• Ph.D., Nutrition and Food Science
• M.S., Chemistry
• B.S., Chemistry

Awards and grants

My research has been supported by various grants (totaling > $ 1M) from governmental and industrial sources.

Selected publications

• Mengying Liu, Nirmalya Saha, Amikai Gajan, Nadia Saadat, Smiti V. Gupta and Lori Pile. Complex interplay between SAM synthetase and the transcriptional cofactor SIN3 to control metabolism and transcription. (2020.) J. Biologial Chemistry. IF: 4.11
• Rajasinghe L., Hutching, M and Gupta SV (2019). Delta-tocotrienol modulates glutamine dependence by inhibiting ASCT2 and LAT1 in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells: Metabolomics Approach. Metabolites
• Mar 13;9(3). pii: E50. doi: 10.3390/metabo9030050. IF: 3.3
• Raja V, Salsaa M, Joshi A, Li Y, van Roermund C, Saadat N, Schmidtke M , Hüttemann M, Gupta SV, Wanders R, and Greenberg ML (2019)
• Cardiolipin-deficient cells depend on anaplerotic pathways to ameliorate defective TCA cycle function. Biochemica et Biophysica Acta Lipids. Aug;1864(8):1183. IF:4.4
• Rajasinghe L., and Gupta SV (2018). Delta-tocotrienol inhibits non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells invasion of cells via inhibition of NF-κB, uPA activator and MMP-9. OncoTargets and Therapy. In press
• Saadat, N., Akhtar, S., Razalli, NH., Goja, A., Geamanu, A., David, D. and Gupta, SV. (2018). Dietary Garcinol Arrests Pancreatic Cancer in p53 and k-ras conditional mutant mouse model. Nutrition and cancer
• Oct 1:1-13. doi: 10.1080/01635581.2018.150232
• Saadat,N., Liu, F; Haynes, B; Nangia-Makker, P Bao, X, Li, X., Polin, L., Gupta, SV., Mao, G., Shekhar, M. (2018) Targeting Triple Negative Breast Cancers with Gold Nanoparticle-Conjugated Rad6 Inhibitor: Metabolic Perturbation, Biodistribution, Pharmacokinetics and Therapeutic Activity. Journal of Controlled Release. 2018 Dec;17(12):2586-2597. doi: 10.1158/1535-7163.MCT-18-0364. Epub 2018 Sep 21.
• PMID: 30242094
• Rajasinghe L., and Gupta SV (2017). Tocotrienols rich mixture inhibits cell proliferation and induces apoptosis via down-regulation of the Notch-1/NF-κB pathways in non-small cell lung cancer cells (NSCLC). J. Nutrition and Dietary Supplements. 2018 Jul 24;11:4301-4314. doi: 10.2147/OTT.S160163. eCollection 2018
• Geamanu A., Bauerfeld, C., Gupta, SV, and Samavati L, (2016) Metabolomics Connect Aberrant Bioenergetic Gut microbiota and Inflammation in Sarcoidosis Patients. Metabolomics. 12(2),35 1-13 DOI 10.1007/s11306-015-0932-2
• Ji X, Usman A, Razalli NH, Sambanthamurthi R, Gupta, SV (2015). Oil palm phenolics (OPP) inhibit pancreatic cancer cell proliferation via suppression of NF-κB pathway. Anticancer Res. Jan;35(1):97-106
• Geamanu, A., Saadat, N., Goja, A., Khosla, P and Gupta, S.V. (2013) ProAlgaZyme subfraction improves the lipoprotein profile of hypercholerteolemic hamsters, while inhibiting production of betaine, carnitine and choline metabolites. J. Nutrition & Metabolism. 10:55. 
• Parasramka, M., Ali, S., Banerjee, S., Deryavoush, T., Sarkar, F., and Gupta, S.V. (2012) Garcinol sensitizes human pancreatic adenocarcinoma cells to gemcitabine by modulating microRNA signatures. Molecular Nutrition and Food Research. 57: 235-248 IF: 4.31
• Ji,X., Wang, Z., Sarkar, F.H., and Gupta, S.V. (2012) Delta-tocotrienol augments cisplatin induced suppression of non-small cell lung cancer cells via inhibition of the Notch-1 pathway. Anticancer Research, 32(7) 2639-2645. IF:1.75
• Geamanu, A., Saadat, N., Goja, A., Wadehra, M., Ji, X., and Gupta, S.V. (2012) ProAlgaZyme and its sub-fractions increase plasma HDL-cholesterol via up regulation of ApoA1, ABCA1 and SRB1 and inhibition of CETP in hypercholesterolemic hamsters. J. Nutrition and Dietary supplements. 4: 17-24. Open access: Total views: 2017 as of 11/8/2012; Total PDF downloads: 441
• Parasramka, M., and Gupta, S.V. (2012) Synergistic effect of garcinol and curcumin on antiproliferative and apoptotic activity in pancreatic cancer cells. J. Oncology. Volume 2012, Article ID 709739, doi:10.1155/2012/709739 
• Saadat, N. and Gupta, S.V. (2012) Potential Role of Garcinol as an Anticancer Agent. J. Oncology. Volume 2012, Article ID 647206, doi:10.1155/2012/647206IF
• Ji,X., Wang, Z., Geamanu, A., Goja, A., Sarkar,, F.H., and Gupta, S.V. (2012) Delta-tocotrienol Suppresses Notch-1 Pathway by Up-regulating miR-34a in Non-small Cell Lung Cancer Cells. International J. Cancer. 131 (11)2668-677
• Saadat, N., Iglayreger, H., Myers,M., Bodary,P., and Gupta, S.V. (2012) Differences in metabolomic profiles of male db/db and s/s, leptin receptor mutant mice. Physiological Genomics. 44(6):374-81
• Ji, X., Wang, Z., Geamanu, A., Sarkar, F.H., Gupta, S.V. (2011) Inhibition of cell growth and induction of apoptosis in non-small cell lung cancer cells by delta-tocotrienol is associated with Notch-1 down-regulation. J. Cell. Biochemistry. 112(10): 2773-83
• Parasramka, M., and Gupta, S.V. (2011) Garcinol Inhibits Cell Proliferation and Promotes Apoptosis in Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma Cells. J. Nutrition and Cancer. 63(3):456-65

Other qualifications directly relevant to courses taught

Licensed to teach the SIMCA multivariate analsys software program. This is used to perform data analysis exercises in the metabolomics class (NFS 7000).

Incremental coursework

Taught two week long Metabolomics Workshop to students and faculty at the University of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur (x3). This included lectures on metabolomic analysis, its applications in diverse scientific fields and a hands on component for multivariate analysis software used for the big data generated in omics analysis.

Courses taught by Smiti Vaid Gupta

Winter Term 2025 (future)

• NFS7850 - Graduate Seminar

Fall Term 2024

• NFS5130 - Food Chemistry
• NFS7000 - Nutritional Metabolomics and Bioinformatics
• NFS7850 - Graduate Seminar
• PSL7180 - Nutritional Metabolomics and Bioinformatics

Winter Term 2024

• NFS5130 - Food Chemistry
• NFS7850 - Graduate Seminar

Fall Term 2023

• NFS5130 - Food Chemistry
• NFS7850 - Graduate Seminar

Winter Term 2023

• NFS5130 - Food Chemistry