Dr. Ghatak is an Associate Professor at the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, University of Pittsburgh. Before joining the McGowan Institute, Dr. Ghatak was an Assistant Professor of Surgery at the Indiana Center for Regenerative Medicine and Engineering (ICRME). Dr. Ghatak completed his post-doctoral research at The Ohio State University on the mechanism of tissue plasticity and microRNA (miRNA) 's role in regenerative healing in adults. He was actively involved in developing a novel, non-invasive, non-viral tissue nanotransfection platform that can reprogram skin fibroblasts to functional neural and endothelial-like cells.
Dr. Ghatak’s laboratory focuses on exosome-mediated intercellular crosstalk in tissue regeneration and repair and the role of miRNA in wound healing. Efficient wound healing relies on successful crosstalk via exosomes between the resident cells, such as keratinocytes or fibroblasts, and blood-borne immune cells, such as macrophages. His laboratory is further investigating the intercellular crosstalk between different cell types in cutaneous wound healing. Dr. Ghatak developed specialized genetic tools for the cell-specific labeling of exosomes to study the significance of intercellular crosstalk in tissue regeneration and repair.
Dr. Ghatak has served as principal investigator for an NIH-funded R01 grant and has contributed to forty peer-reviewed publications. He is an editorial board member for Frontiers in Medicine and Antioxidants & Redox Signaling and is a junior editor for Extracellular Vesicles and Circulating Nucleic Acids.