Rate My Professor Anupriya Gupta

Dr. Anupriya Gupta is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Biomedical Sciences, at the University of Otago. She joined the Pletzer Lab in 2024 on a Marsden-funded project dedicated to investigating host immune responses to polymicrobial skin infections caused by Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Employing murine skin abscess models, bulk and single-cell RNA sequencing, and cytokine profiling, her research examines how pathogen-pathogen interactions modulate immune activation, disease severity, and therapeutic outcomes. Key findings demonstrate that co-infections produce larger abscesses accompanied by suppressed pro-inflammatory cytokine expression and reduced inflammatory signaling at the cellular level. Instead, there is upregulation of genes associated with epithelial defense and barrier repair, suggesting a host strategy prioritizing tissue protection and antimicrobial containment over classical inflammation. This work aims to uncover mechanisms for enhancing treatments against complex skin and soft tissue infections, which pose significant clinical challenges due to increased severity and resistance.

Gupta's scholarly output reflects expertise in immunology and microbiology, particularly T cell-mediated skin inflammation and bacterial pathogenesis. Prior investigations addressed lysophosphatidylcholine's role in aggravating contact hypersensitivity via neutrophil infiltration and IL-17 expression (BMB Reports, 2021, 29 citations), mTORC1 deficiency's protective effects against atopic dermatitis through type 2 inflammation downregulation (International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 2023, 6 citations), CD4+ T cells' essential function in chronic skin inflammation (Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, 2022, 5 citations), and prolyl hydroxylase inhibition's benefits in IL-33-induced pulmonary inflammation (Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, 2023). Recent contributions include the anti-biofilm peptide DJK-5 enhancing Staphylococcus aureus susceptibility in co-biofilms (npj Biofilms and Microbiomes, 2025, 8 citations) and a detailed protocol for studying bacterial dynamics in skin abscesses (STAR Protocols, 2026). In March 2026, she presented a seminar titled 'Microbial cross-talk: How polymicrobial interactions reshape host immunity in skin infection,' further disseminating her insights into host-pathogen dynamics.