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Dr Thanuja Darshani Herath

Research Fellow,
Academic Clinical Programme Office,
National Dental Centre Singapore


Dr Thanuja Herath is a Molecular & Cellular Biologist with research focus on Immune-modulated bone bioengineering, dental tissue regeneration and host-microbial crosstalk. Dr Thanuja graduated from the Faculty of Dentistry, The University of Hong Kong. Then she moved to National Dental Centre Singapore (NDCS) as a Post-Doctoral Fellow. Currently, Dr Thanuja is working on immune-modulated bone bioengineering using animal models. She has developed cell-based and cell-free therapeutic approaches using neutrophils and exosomes for bone tissue engineering. Dr Thanuja successfully received NMRC-enabling funding from NDCS and SingHealth Foundation grant for her studies. Her recent studies on bone bioengineering and human monocyte response to bacterial endotoxin have received number of prestigious Awards from International Association for Dental Research (IADR).


Education

  • Bachelor of Dental Surgery(BDS Hons),Department of Immunology(Pasture-Hong Kong University)
  • Master of Philosophy(MPhil),Department of Immunology(Pasture-Hong Kong University)
  • Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Department of Immunology (Pasture-Hong Kong University)


Appointments

  • Research Fellow II, National Dental Centre Singapore
  • Regular Rank Instructor, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School


Grants

  • SHF -Start Up(PI: Lui Jeen Nee), Correlation Between Pulpal Inflammatory Markers and Clinical Outcomes of Partial Pulpotomy
  • NMRC CS-IRG-NIG(PI: William Lim), Therapeutic efficacy of exosome-infused PCL-TCP scaffold for repair and regeneration of critical-size mandibular defects


Selected Publications

  • Thuy Do Deirdre Devine, and Philip D Marsh. Oral biofilms: molecular analysis, challenges, and future prospects in dental diagnostics.Clin Cosmet Investig Dent.2013; 5: 11–19.Published online 2013 Feb 28. doi:  10.2147/CCIDE.S31005PMCID: PMC3652372
  • Thanuja D K Herath, Yu Wang, Chaminda J Seneviratne, Richard P Darveau, Cun-Yu Wang and Lijian Jin.The expression and regulation of matrix metalloproteinase-3 is critically modulated by Porphyromonas gingivalis lipopolysaccharide with heterogeneous lipid A structures in human gingival fibroblasts.Email authorBMC Microbiology201313:73 DOI: 10.1186/1471-2180-13-73©  Herath et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013 Received: 13 November 2012Accepted: 15 March 2013 Published: 30 March 2013
  • Herath TD, Darveau RP, Seneviratne CJ, Wang CY, Wang Y, Jin L. Tetra- and penta-acylated lipid A structures of Porphyromonas gingivalis LPS differentially activate TLR4-mediated NF-κB signal transduction cascade and immuno-inflammatory response in human gingival fibroblasts. PLoS One. 2013;8(3):e58496. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0058496. Epub 2013 Mar 12.
  • Herath T, Darveau RP, Seneviratne CJ, Wang CY, Wang Y, Jin L. Heterogeneous Porphyromonas gingivalis LPS modulates immuno-inflammatory response, antioxidant defense and cytoskeletal dynamics in human gingival fibroblasts. Sci Rep. 2016 Aug 19;6:29829. doi: 10.1038/srep29829.
  • Herath TDK, Larbi A, Teoh SH, James Kirkpatrick C, Goh BT. Neutrophil-mediated enhancement of angiogenesis and osteogenesis in a novel triple cell co-culture model with endothelial cells and osteoblasts. J Tissue Eng Regen Med. 2018 Feb;12(2):e1221-e1236. doi: 10.1002/term.2521. Epub 2017 Dec 3.