Dr. Vishakha Mahajan
Research & Innovation Scientist, Dr Vishakha Mahajan is a bright star of the international research community.
She joined The cGP Lab in 2022 and is excited to be driving research into the next generation of healthy aging with cGPMAX®. Her work at The cGP Lab involves researching the health potential of the molecule cyclic Glycine-Proline (cGP) - the hero molecule in the cGPMAX® range of products.
“Conducting cGP research has been exciting and unlocks a whole new potential in the field of healthy ageing.”
Healthy ageing: the proactive paradigm shift
Pioneering Research
With a background in Molecular and Reproductive Biology, Dr. Mahajan has had a particular interest in decoding the implication of hormone health in disease states. Her research has covered areas such as cervical cancer, endometriosis, endometrial cancer and in-vitro fertilisation demonstrating a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach.
“There is a paradigm shift in the concept of healthy ageing which has moved the focus from cure of age-related diseases to delaying the onset of age-related symptoms.”
Dr. Mahajan earned her BSc. from Pennsylvania State University in Biological Sciences complemented with an additional degree in Health Policy and Administration. With a keen interest in translational and clinical research, she then pursued her MSc. from Imperial College, London, where she investigated the impact of environmental and lifestyle risk factors that contribute to the vaginal microbiome of women with HPV infection and pre-cancerous lesions. Her work evaluated sampling techniques for diseases that are associated with high-diversity microbiota.
She then pursued her PhD in Molecular and Reproductive Biology from The Liggins Institute at the University of Auckland where she spent four and a half years understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms that guide uterine health and hormone action in diseases such as endometriosis and endometrial cancer. She then went on to do further work developing an experimental pilot that improves the understanding endometrial biology. Her research into the epigenetic mechanisms that regulate gene expression in endometrial biology revealed the importance of measuring certain novel markers as co-regulators of hormone action in the endometrium and in its pathologies.
“Younger people [are motivated] to take charge of their health earlier and consider how their lifestyle choices might affect their long-term health.”
She was also involved in pioneering research that characterised the urogenital microbiome as a predictive test in the in-vitro fertilisation treatment cycle.
This pilot served as a gateway to developing a predictive test allowing women to self-sample prior to embryo transfer and obtain an indication of microbial species present which could influence implantation outcome.