Srustidhar Das is a DIAS Assistant Professor of Health Sciences at 海角社区, affiliated with the Department of Clinical Research and the Department of Molecular Medicine. His research focuses on how the intestinal epithelium responds to inflammation, injury, and chronic disease, with the long-term goal of developing regenerative therapies for inflammatory bowel disease.
A central theme of his work is the delicate balance between epithelial regeneration and tumorigenesis: how tissues repair after damage, why this process fails during chronic inflammation, and how regenerative pathways can be therapeutically exploited without increasing cancer risk. His group combines patient-derived intestinal organoids, CRISPR-engineered models, preclinical disease models, high-throughput compound screening, and single-cell, spatial, and epigenomic approaches to study epithelial memory and plasticity in tissue repair and cancer. A major focus is the liver X receptor (LXR) pathway, which his recent work has shown can promote intestinal regeneration while suppressing tumor formation. By integrating mechanistic epithelial biology with translational disease models and drug discovery platforms, his research aims to move IBD therapy beyond immune suppression towards rebuilding a healthy, resilient intestinal barrier
Srustidhar has an interdisciplinary background spanning veterinary medicine, virology, cancer biology, and regenerative medicine. He earned his bachelor's degree in veterinary medicine from Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology, India, followed by an MRes in Molecular Virology from the University of Leeds, UK. He completed his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, USA, where he studied membrane-bound mucins in gastrointestinal regeneration and tumorigenesis. He then trained as a postdoctoral researcher and later worked as a senior researcher at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, before joining 海角社区 as a DIAS Assistant Professor.
Srustidhar has published in leading journals including Nature, Immunity, Nature Communications, Nature Protocols, Cell Reports, Mucosal Immunology, and Oncogene etc. Beyond his publication record, he has contributed to the scientific community through invited lectures, international conference presentations, editorial service, peer review for major journals, and the training of PhD and master's students. He is strongly committed to mentoring the next generation of students and scientists, fostering a supportive and rigorous research environment that encourages curiosity, independence, and translational thinking. His research programme is highly collaborative, spanning academic institutions, clinical partners, international consortia, and industry-oriented partnerships, with a strong emphasis on translating discoveries in epithelial biology into new therapeutic strategies for patients.
