Affiliation: Duke University School of Medicine

Vishwaraj Sontake is a cell and molecular biologist with expertise in the field of lung injury, repair, and regeneration. Dr. Sontake earned his PhD from Osmania University, Hyderabad, India. He was awarded a CSIR (India’s top scientific board) research fellowship to pursue his doctoral degree at the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), an Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Institute. His doctoral work was focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms of chronic tissue remodeling diseases using lung and kidney as organ systems. During this time, he collaborated with researchers at Cincinnati children’s hospital medical center (CCHMC), University of Cincinnati, to uncover the role of fibrocytes in chronic fibrotic lung diseases such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and cystic fibrosis (CF). He also studied the role of the mesenchymal and mesothelial cells in IPF.  

Sontake’s current research is focused on establishing lung organoid models for disease modeling and regenerative medicine. He uses human and mouse lungs to establish the organoids from various lung stem cells such as AT2, Basal, and Club cells. He is using organoid models to understand the cell-autonomous mechanisms that control stem cell fate. Additionally, he is developing methods to study the physical interactions between epithelial and fibroblasts in both in-vivo and in ex-vivo cultures. Dr. Sontake’s work has been published in many peer-reviewed journals, and he is an active member of the American Thoracic Society (ATS) and American Heart Association (AHA).