Currently I am involved working with amphiphilic polymers, their aqueous aggregation and release of encapsulated drug/dye from stimuli responsive polymeric aggregates, as a result of external stimuli, which has led to widening the scope for studying this class of polymers for translation research. The stimuli responsive release of cargo is one of the prerequisites for any polymeric nano-carrier which has potential for drug-delivery. Thus, in recent past, our research was based on the motivation to develop amphiphilic nano-aggregates for drug-delivery applications. Hence, initially the focus was on physical characterization of the aggregated nano-structures (micelle, polymersome etc), dye/drug encapsulation efficiency, exchange dynamics in these aggregates using FRET by either encapsulating dye molecules or covalently attaching dye molecules, and finally stimuli responsive drug release in vitro from stimuli responsive polymers, specifically poly(disulfides), which releases encapsulated drug molecules in presence of Glutathione (GSH). This polymer was then studied to kill cancers cells where GSH is present in excess. Moreover, to understand the effect of shape of nano-aggregates on cellular uptake and further use it to enhance cellular uptake, supramolecularly engineered amphiphilic macromolecules were studied. Entropy-driven remarkably stable aqueous self-assembly of these molecules were formed with controllable mesoscopic structures, due to the directional supramolecular assembly enabling promising biological applications.

During this tenure, I worked on to study kinetic stability of various amphiphilic polymers to establish a structure - function relationship and also to realize their potential as potent drug delivery vehicle; DNA binding with amphiphilic nano - assemblies so as to utilize them as gene - delivery vehicles.

As an Research Associate at S. N. Bose Centre, The work involved lot of spectroscopy, including the time resolved (pico second) fluorescence spectroscopy, fabrication of nano -structures like micelles and vesicles from commercially available lipid and surfactant molecules.