Ketan Patel is Professor of Regenerative Medicine at the University of Reading with over 35 years of multidisciplinary research experience.
Throughout his research career, Ketan has focused on the mechanisms involved in skeletal muscle degeneration and the development of vertebrate muscle. He commenced his research journey at Imperial College, where he pursued his PhD to analyze the distribution of Dystrophin, the protein affected in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. In his investigations of skeletal muscle development, Patel has employed various vertebrate models, including zebrafish, Xenopus, chicks, and mice, utilizing experimental embryological techniques, primarily tissue surgery, with the central objective of elucidating the mechanisms that regulate the expansion of the myogenic precursor pool and the generation of post-mitotic muscle cells. The application of molecular techniques and tissue ablation studies in these animal models has been pivotal in achieving groundbreaking discoveries in muscle development. He demonstrated that muscle differentiation is a default pathway that requires inhibition rather than induction.
In recent years, he has been applying these findings to adult muscle development, aiming to create signalling pathway-based therapies for muscle-wasting diseases. Over the past five years, Patel has redirected some of his research efforts towards understanding tissue damage resulting from snake envenomation. This work is informed by his investigations into the mechanisms of muscle degeneration associated with neuromuscular disorders. His research indicates that many of the mechanisms responsible for chronic muscle damage in neuromuscular diseases are accelerated during venom-induced muscle damage, thereby opening new research avenues to transfer findings and therapies between these two fields.
Professor Ketan is visiting the NHLI CRI Section as part of the CRI Research Club Seminar Series on Wednesday 21st May to give a fascinating seminar on “Developing an understanding for Snake Envenomation mediated skeletal muscle damage”.
Please join us in Room 601, Victor Philip Dadaleh (VPD) Building from 12:00-13:00 or via the Teams link provided.