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Co-Investigator Team

Stem Cell Research

Dr Reeteka Sud

Lab Senior Scientist (Equivalent to Research Associate Professor), Department of Psychiatry

How can patient-derived stem cells help connect the dots, from genomic risk to clinical diagnosis -- this is the unifying research theme for my various projects. My expertise lies broadly at the intersection of Genetics, Neuroscience and Psychiatry.  I head the CBM Biorepository at NIMHANS, where we bank biospecimen from psychiatric patients, including stem cells, DNA, plasma and serum. I am also very passionate about scicomm/public outreach on mental health conditions

Select Publications


2026 

2025 

2024

Projects


  1. Deciphering the molecular mechanisms of treatment-resistant schizophrenia and clozapine response:

To understand the genomic and cellular predictors of treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS) and clozapine response using genome-wide association study (GWAS) and induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSC): Here our aim is to:

1. Identify genomic factors underlying TRS and clozapine response

2. Elucidate cellular mechanisms of TRS and clozapine response in IPSC-derived

organoids

3. Evaluate the translational utility of these genetic/cellular markers as predictors of TRS and clozapine response using existing prospective cohorts

(Funding from PGRN, BFI Foundation)

  1. Subcellular Dynamics in Neuropsychiatric Disorders: Our recent work highlights the manifold ways in which sub-cellular organelles may be driving disease pathogenesis. We discovered connections between APOE genotype and ribosome biogenesis, which could be significant for ADRD pathogenesis, and is currently under investigation. We are also using techniques like ExM to study how cytoskeletal structures mediate the workings of antipsychotic drugs, and by extension, be affected in psychotic disorders.

(Funding from Ben Barres Award, Axilor Labs)


Key Research Outputs


(C) Direction of migration. C1-C3 cells migrated in a relatively directional pattern. B1 and B2 cells, however, migrated in a random, non-directed manner. Both BD lines showed back-and-forth movement, and directional and circular patterns of migration. (D) Sample migratory paths of control and patient-derived lines over 15 h.
(C) Direction of migration. C1-C3 cells migrated in a relatively directional pattern. B1 and B2 cells, however, migrated in a random, non-directed manner. Both BD lines showed back-and-forth movement, and directional and circular patterns of migration. (D) Sample migratory paths of control and patient-derived lines over 15 h.

Abnormalities in the migration of neural precursor cells in familial bipolar disorder

The trajectories of migrating neural precursors lay the foundations of the developing central nervous system.  Here we demonstrate identifiable cellular abnormalities in NPCs derived from BD patients. 


The BD patients in this study were chosen from a dense family, who had multiple rare damaging variants implicated in cellular migration, and had structural abnormalities noted on brain MRI scans (Fig. 1A). Cellular migration analysis showed that although patient-derived NPCs showed a random trajectory, the NPCs from healthy controls migrated towards other cells (directed/ballistic movement) (Fig. 1C-D). 


Integration of deep clinical phenotyping with investigations into cellular mechanisms in patient-derived IPSCs, as reported here, can provide much-needed comprehensive understanding of psychiatric disorders.

Cell cycle abnormality is a cellular phenotype in OCD A critical and yet unanswered question in Psychiatry is how might clinical phenotypes manifest in terms of cellular readouts. This study was conducted to determine differences in cell cycle in patient-derived cells vs controls


A) Illustrates the placement of Indian samples between European and East Asian clusters, highlighting notable regional variability. Asian PCA with HGDP samples. B) Presents a north-south ancestral gradient, correlated with latitude. SVM predictions. C) Decile-based risk stratification in BD
A) Illustrates the placement of Indian samples between European and East Asian clusters, highlighting notable regional variability. Asian PCA with HGDP samples. B) Presents a north-south ancestral gradient, correlated with latitude. SVM predictions. C) Decile-based risk stratification in BD

A cross ancestry genetic study of psychiatric disorders from India We estimated the extent of population stratification as well as the predictive accuracy of polygenic scores (PGS) derived from European samples to a data set from India. Our analyses reveal global and continental PCA overlap with other South Asian populations. Admixture analysis revealed a north-south genetic axis within India (FST 1.6%). The Bayesian PGS analyses indicates moderate-to-high predictive power for BD.


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