Kunlin Jin, Ph.D.
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12503/21594
Professor, Pharmacology & Neuroscience
Member, Institute for Healthy Aging
Email: Kunlin.Jin@unthsc.edu
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Browsing Kunlin Jin, Ph.D. by Author "Chakrabarti, Sasanka"
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Item COVID-19 in India: Are Biological and Environmental Factors Helping to Stem the Incidence and Severity?(JKL International, 2020-05-09) Chakrabarti, Sankha Shubhra; Kaur, Upinder; Banerjee, Anindita; Ganguly, Upsana; Banerjee, Tuhina; Saha, Sarama; Parashar, Gaurav; Prasad, Suvarna; Chakrabarti, Suddhachitta; Mittal, Amit; Agrawal, Bimal Kumar; Rawal, Ravindra Kumar; Zhao, Robert Chunhua; Gambhir, Indrajeet Singh; Khanna, Rahul; Shetty, Ashok K.; Jin, Kunlin; Chakrabarti, SasankaThe ongoing Corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic has witnessed global political responses of unimaginable proportions. Many nations have implemented lockdowns that involve mandating citizens not to leave their residences for non-essential work. The Indian government has taken appropriate and commendable steps to curtail the community spread of COVID-19. While this may be extremely beneficial, this perspective discusses the other reasons why COVID-19 may have a lesser impact on India. We analyze the current pattern of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, testing, and mortality in India with an emphasis on the importance of mortality as a marker of the clinical relevance of COVID-19 disease. We also analyze the environmental and biological factors which may lessen the impact of COVID-19 in India. The importance of cross-immunity, innate immune responses, ACE polymorphism, and viral genetic mutations are discussed.Item Interdisciplinary Research in Alzheimer's Disease and the Roles International Societies Can Play(JKL International, 2021-02-01) Tan, Shawn Zheng Kai; Zhao, Robert Chunhua; Chakrabarti, Sasanka; Stambler, Ilia; Jin, Kunlin; Lim, Lee WeiAn ever-increasing ageing population has elevated Alzheimer's disease to be one of the biggest challenges in modern medicine. Alzheimer's disease is highly complex, and we are still no closer to understanding the causes, let alone an effective treatment. The lack of good experimental models and lack of critical understanding has led to high failure rates of clinical trials with high associated costs, as well as difficulties in implementing treatments. The multifaceted nature of this disease highlights the need for an interdisciplinary approach to address these concerns. In this essay, we suggest how collaborative work can be useful in addressing some of the above issues. We then propose that international organisations and publishers need to support interdisciplinary research by creating platforms, lobbying funders, and pushing for interdisciplinary publications. We further highlight some of the issues involved in implementing these suggestions and argue that willpower of the research community, together with a re-evaluation of evaluation metrics and incentive systems, are needed in order to foster interdisciplinary research. Overall, we emphasise the need for interdisciplinary research in Alzheimer's disease and suggest that international societies should play a huge role in this endeavour.Item Of Cross-immunity, Herd Immunity and Country-specific Plans: Experiences from COVID-19 in India(JKL International, 2020-12-01) Chakrabarti, Sankha Shubhra; Kaur, Upinder; Singh, Anup; Chakrabarti, Suddhachitta; Krishnatreya, Manigreeva; Agrawal, Bimal Kumar; Mittal, Amit; Singh, Amit; Khanna, Rahul; Gambhir, Indrajeet Singh; Jin, Kunlin; Chakrabarti, SasankaIndia has witnessed a high number of COVID-19 cases, but mortality has been quite low, and most cases have been asymptomatic or mild. In early April, we had hypothesized a low COVID-19 mortality in India, based on the concept of cross-immunity. The presence of cross-immunity is presumed to lead to a milder course of disease and allow the time necessary for the development of adaptive immunity by the body to eliminate the virus. Evidence supporting our hypothesis has started showing up. Multiple studies have shown the generation of different T cell subsets and B cells responding to epitopes of viral proteins, especially of the spike protein, as a part of adaptive immunity against SARS-CoV-2. Cross-reactive T-cells have been demonstrated in patients who have been previously exposed to endemic coronaviruses. The interplay of cross-immunity and herd immunity is apparent in the COVID-19 scenario in India from the presence of a large number of asymptomatic or mild cases, a low infection-fatality ratio and a generally flat curve of percentage positivity of cases with respect to total testing, both in periods of strict lock-down and step-wise unlocking. It seems that cross-immunity resulted in faster generation of herd immunity. Although the initial restrictive measures such as lockdown prevented the rapid spread of the outbreak, further extension of such measures and overly expensive ones such as enhanced testing in India will result in a huge burden on the health economics as well as the society. Hence, we propose a restructuring of the health services and approach to COVID-19. The restructured health services should move away from indiscriminate testing, isolation and quarantine, and instead, the emphasis should be on improving facilities for testing and management of only critical COVID cases and the replacement of complete lockdowns by the selective isolation and quarantine of susceptible persons such as the aged and those with co-morbidities. In the process of describing India-specific plans, we emphasize why the development of country-specific plans for tackling epidemics is important, instead of adopting a "one policy fits all" approach.Item Rapidly Progressive Dementia with Asymmetric Rigidity Following ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 Vaccination(JKL International, 2022-06-01) Chakrabarti, Sankha Shubhra; Tiwari, Ashutosh; Jaiswal, Sumit; Kaur, Upinder; Kumar, Ishan; Mittal, Amit; Singh, Anup; Jin, Kunlin; Chakrabarti, SasankaItem The Pathogenetic Dilemma of Post-COVID-19 Mucormycosis in India(JKL International, 2022-02-01) Chakrabarti, Sankha Shubhra; Kaur, Upinder; Aggarwal, Sushil Kumar; Kanakan, Ahalya; Saini, Adesh; Agrawal, Bimal Kumar; Jin, Kunlin; Chakrabarti, SasankaThere has been a surge of mucormycosis cases in India in the wake of the second wave of COVID-19 with more than 40000 cases reported. Mucormycosis in patients of COVID-19 in India is at variance to other countries where Aspergillus, Pneumocystis, and Candida have been reported to be the major secondary fungal pathogens. We discuss the probable causes of the mucormycosis epidemic in India. Whereas dysglycaemia and inappropriate steroid use have been widely suggested as tentative reasons, we explore other biological, iatrogenic, and environmental factors. The likelihood of a two-hit pathogenesis remains strong. We propose that COVID-19 itself provides the predisposition to invasive mucormycosis (first hit), through upregulation of GRP78 and downregulation of spleen tyrosine kinase involved in anti-fungal defense, as also through inhibition of CD8+ T-cell mediated immunity. The other iatrogenic and environmental factors may provide the second hit which may have resulted in the surge.Item Transplantation of ACE2(-) Mesenchymal Stem Cells Improves the Outcome of Patients with COVID-19 Pneumonia(JKL International, 2020-03-09) Leng, Zikuan; Zhu, Rongjia; Hou, Wei; Feng, Yingmei; Yang, Yanlei; Han, Qin; Shan, Guangliang; Meng, Fanyan; Du, Dongshu; Wang, Shihua; Fan, Junfen; Wang, Wenjing; Deng, Luchan; Shi, Hongbo; Li, Hongjun; Hu, Zhongjie; Zhang, Fengchun; Gao, Jinming; Liu, Hongjian; Li, Xiaoxia; Zhao, Yangyang; Yin, Kan; He, Xijing; Gao, Zhengchao; Wang, Yibin; Yang, Bo; Jin, Ronghua; Stambler, Ilia; Lim, Lee Wei; Su, Huanxing; Moskalev, Alexey; Cano, Antonio; Chakrabarti, Sasanka; Min, Kyung-Jin; Ellison-Hughes, Georgina; Caruso, Calogero; Jin, Kunlin; Zhao, Robert ChunhuaA coronavirus (HCoV-19) has caused the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Wuhan, China. Preventing and reversing the cytokine storm may be the key to save the patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been shown to possess a comprehensive powerful immunomodulatory function. This study aims to investigate whether MSC transplantation improves the outcome of 7 enrolled patients with COVID-19 pneumonia in Beijing YouAn Hospital, China, from Jan 23, 2020 to Feb 16, 2020. The clinical outcomes, as well as changes of inflammatory and immune function levels and adverse effects of 7 enrolled patients were assessed for 14 days after MSC injection. MSCs could cure or significantly improve the functional outcomes of seven patients without observed adverse effects. The pulmonary function and symptoms of these seven patients were significantly improved in 2 days after MSC transplantation. Among them, two common and one severe patient were recovered and discharged in 10 days after treatment. After treatment, the peripheral lymphocytes were increased, the C-reactive protein decreased, and the overactivated cytokine-secreting immune cells CXCR3+CD4+ T cells, CXCR3+CD8+ T cells, and CXCR3+ NK cells disappeared in 3-6 days. In addition, a group of CD14+CD11c+CD11b(mid) regulatory DC cell population dramatically increased. Meanwhile, the level of TNF-alpha was significantly decreased, while IL-10 increased in MSC treatment group compared to the placebo control group. Furthermore, the gene expression profile showed MSCs were ACE2(-) and TMPRSS2(-) which indicated MSCs are free from COVID-19 infection. Thus, the intravenous transplantation of MSCs was safe and effective for treatment in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia, especially for the patients in critically severe condition.