Puneet Bagga Lab

Our research encompasses three interconnected approaches, the first of which involves evaluating the abnormal metabolic fluxes in patient-derived cancer cells. This line of research inquiry allows us to determine the flux rates in metabolic pathways, where a greater understanding of these rates may point toward potential diagnostic approaches and therapeutically targetable vulnerabilities in those cancers.

We then take our findings about cancer cells’ metabolic fluxes and develop in vivo preclinical models of these cancers. Using administration of stable isotope tracers such as glucose, glutamine and acetate, among others, our team uses dynamic magnetic resonance spectroscopy and LC-MS techniques to identify the upregulated metabolic pathways in cancer to home in on potential targets for therapy.

Our third area of research involves developing clinically translatable methods to image some or all of these metabolic pathways in patients with cancer and tissues involved in other kinds of disease. For example, our lab collaborates with investigators in the Center for Experimental Neurotherapeutics to study the oxidative phosphorylation in skeletal muscle of patients with spinal muscular atrophy, Friedreich's ataxia and muscular dystrophies.

All of our research aims to improve imaging modalities to improve our understanding of pathways that lead to cancer and neurodevelopmental disorders in children.