Member, Department of Cancer Biology
Roswell Park Cancer Institute
Elm and Carlton Streets
Buffalo, New York USA 14263
Tel: (716) 845-2397
Fax: (716) 845-3458
E-mail: khushi.matta@roswellpark.org

Education
Punjab University, Chandigarh, India, BS, 1961, Chemistry
Punjab University, Chandigarh, India, MS, 1962, Organic Chemistry
Punjab University, Chandigarh, India, PhD, 1966, Organic Chemistry

Description of Research

My laboratory unitizes carbohydrate chemistry to develop synthetic resources for further application in our investigations of glycoprotein biosynthesis. One area of study is the investigation of human galactosyl-,fucosyl-, and sialyltransferases implicated in the biosynthesis of cancer related glycoconjugates. Another program seeks to identify and characterize sulfotransferases present in different tumor cell lines and human tissue, in order to elucidate the biosynthetic pathway of sulfoglycoconjugates.

Information obtained for these programs leads us to develop studies into cell adhesion processes. Cell adhesion plays an important role in chronic inflammatory diseases. In addition the cell adhesion process may be exploited by cancer cells to metastasize after entering the blood stream. Major effort is being centered on the prevention of initial adhesion events between circulating leukocytes and endothelium involving two families of cell surface receptors: the selectins and integrins. The family of selectins contains three members: E,P and L-selectin. All of our efforts are directed at understanding the glycobiology of cancer and related diseases.