Parekh Parag, PhD

Personal Statement

Dr.Parag Parekh received his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Florida at Gainesville in 2010. He trained at the interface of the two disciplines as a Chemical Biologist and a Bioanalytical Chemist with a particular focus on generating aptamer probes for varied applications. He generated aptamers for virus-infected cells, cancer cells and used the aptamers to detect infected and cancer cells, identify novel biomarkers and study protein-protein interactions. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Pathology and Genomic Medicine at Houston Methodist Research Institute and a Research Scientist at the Department of Endocrine Neoplasia and Hormonal Disorders at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. His research focused on the use of aptamers for tumor imaging in mice and targeted immunotherapy of lymphoma and anaplastic thyroid cancer. His investigations in the are of male reproductive biology include the regulation and maintenance of spermatogonial stem cell niche and the development of non-steroidal male contraceptives. Subsequently he joined the Baylor College of Medicine/Texas Children’s Hospital as a Senior Research Scientist in 2019.

His research interests include:

1. Development of comprehensive strategies to generate target-specific probes to deliver cargos such as drugs, genes and bioactive molecules in a specific and sensitive manner.

2. Generation of targeted theranostic (therapy+diagnostic) and multi-modal imaging probes

3. Study of tau pathologies and reproductive biology using imaging and 3-D printing  

Education

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Organizations

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* Texas Children’s Hospital physicians’ licenses and credentials are reviewed prior to practicing at any of our facilities. Sections titled From the Doctor, Professional Organizations and Publications were provided by the physician’s office and were not verified by Texas Children’s Hospital.

Parekh PA, Garcia TX, Waheeb R, Jain V, Gandhi P, Meistrich ML, Shetty G, Hofmann M.  Undifferentiated spermatogonia regulate Cyp26b1 expression through NOTCH signaling and drive germ cell differentiation. C. FASEB J.2019 Apr 16:fj201802361R. doi: 10.1096/fj.201802361R.

Zeng Z, Parekh P, Li Z, Shi ZZ, Tung CH, Zu Y.  Specific and sensitive tumor imaging using biostable oligonucleotide aptamer probes. Theranostics 2014 Jul 19;4(9):945-52. doi: 10.7150/thno.9246.

Parekh P, Kamble S, Zhao N, Zeng Z, Portier BP, Zu Y.   Immunotherapy of CD30-expressing lymphoma using a highly stable ssDNA aptamer. Biomaterials 2013 Nov;34(35):8909-17. doi: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2013.07.099.

Parekh P, Tang Z, Turner PC, Moyer RW, Tan W.  Aptamers recognizing glycosylated hemagglutinin expressed on the surface of vaccinia virus-infected cells. Analytical Chemistry 2010 Oct 15;82(20):8642-9. doi: 10.1021/ac101801j.

View PubMed Publications:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Parekh+Parag&cmd=DetailsSearch 

View Google Scholar Publications:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=tE2gPe8AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao