Sudipta Tripathi, PhD

In this month’s Researcher Spotlight, we feature the work of Sudipta Tripathi, PhD, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Renal Medicine. Dr. Tripathi’s research centers on transplant immunology, with a particular focus on developing regulatory cell therapies for use in kidney transplant patients. Her work also focuses on standardizing the regulatory cell expansion process, characterizing regulatory cells, discovering their phenotype, and understanding their function and clinical potential. 

Dr. Tripathi’s interest in biology began during her early days of education in India. She earned an MSc in Botany from Ravenshaw College in Cuttack, Odisha, India, followed by an MSc in Microbiology from Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. She later went on to complete a PhD in Biotechnology at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur, India. Dr. Tripathi also pursued numerous postdoctoral fellowships at institutions such as SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York, Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and, most recently, Boston Children's Hospital, where she worked on the basic principles of transplantation immunology research. It was during her postdoctoral training that she developed an interest in transplantation immunology. 

“Back then, it was a very niche field; a very small number of researchers worked in this field. When I started learning about transplantation immunology, I found it very interesting how the immune system can interfere with a transplant or an allograft and how that can be regulated,” said Dr. Tripathi. “My mentor once said, ‘If everybody is going to work in cancer, who is going to work in transplantation?’. I had not thought of it like that, and that’s how I was introduced to it.” 

Before joining UMass Chan in February 2024, Dr. Tripathi worked alongside Anil Chandraker, MD, chief and professor of medicine in the Division of Renal Medicine. Together, they developed the expansion method to generate autologous antigen specific regulatory cells from kidney transplant recipients, in addition to conducting translational research and sponsored clinical trials. Now collaborating at UMass Chan, Drs. Tripathi, Chandraker, and their colleagues are currently studying ex vivo PBMC expansion from stable kidney transplant recipients and lung transplant recipients to develop a regulatory cell therapy product for future clinical use to prolong long-term allograft acceptance. According to Dr. Tripathi, the study involves the development and standardization of the expansion process, detailed characterization of the expanded cells, and manufacturing the same in a cGMP facility. “It takes a lot of patients and a lot of standardization to understand and overcome the wide variability observed between patients, which is what our main hurdle is,” explained Dr. Tripathi.  

By working to create this type of regulatory cell therapy, Dr. Tripathi explains that introducing expanded cells into the body can help reduce the immunosuppression that the patient receives. By reducing immunosuppression, there will not only be prolongation of the allograft, but also fewer side effects for the patient, such as chronic Kidney Disease, Cardiovascular Disease, and hypertension. “These are all standard and established problems of immunosuppression, and if cell therapy can reduce the amount of immunosuppressive drugs a patient has to take every day, it will reduce not only a lot of side effects but also give the patient a better lifestyle without loss of the graft,” said Dr. Tripathi. Over the past six months, Dr. Tripathi and her colleagues have collaborated on this initiative closely with ScaleReady, a company that produces small bioreactors for T-cell expansion, supported by a grant provided by the company.  

For future research goals, Dr. Tripathi hopes to expand regulatory cell populations for liver transplant patients and aims to create a single standardized method of cell expansion. “The aim will be to have one standardized method of expansion irrespective of whatever the solid organ transplant is and to have a product that will be regulatory, irrespective of the transplant and the patient.”  

Dr. Tripathi also focuses on studying what kind of extracellular vesicles (EVs) regulatory cells produce and how these impact the overall immune response. EVs also have the potential to be used as therapeutics, and in-depth characterization is the first step in that direction, according to Dr. Tripathi.  

In addition to her work on regulatory cell therapy, Dr. Tripathi serves as a mentor to residents, fellows, medical students, and visiting faculty in the lab. In this role, she provides guidance on all aspects of research, from project planning and management to data collection, processing, analysis, and presentation. Dr. Tripathi is also involved in sample collection, assessments, overall lab processes and creation of a biobank. 

We thank Dr. Tripathi for her ongoing research contributions and dedication to her mentees and the Department of Medicine! 

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