Directory Entry For: Mayukh Banerjee

Biography

Dr. Mayukh Banerjee is an environmental toxicologist whose career has been defined by a sustained commitment to uncovering the molecular mechanisms by which chronic arsenic exposure drives human disease, particularly skin carcinogenesis. Beginning with foundational training in zoology in India and a Ph.D. in Science from the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Dr. Banerjee’s early work integrated human genetics, toxicology, and population-based research to identify genetic markers of arsenic susceptibility. His subsequent postdoctoral training at the University of Alberta expanded this foundation, leading to the discovery and functional characterization of novel arsenic transport pathways mediated by the human multidrug resistance protein MRP4—work supported by the Alberta Cancer Foundation.

Since joining the University of Louisville in 2018 and transitioning to a tenure-track Assistant Professor role in 2020, Dr. Banerjee has established an independent research program that bridges toxicology, molecular biology, and carcinogenesis. His laboratory investigates how environmentally relevant arsenic exposure disrupts zinc-dependent proteins to alter crucial homeostatic processes including alternative splicing, mRNA methylation, proteostasis, and autophagy. This work has led to funded projects from the American Cancer Society, and Jewish Heritage Fund for Excellence, illuminating zinc displacement as a unifying mechanistic driver of arsenic-induced dysregulation.

Dr. Banerjee’s research productivity is reflected in numerous awards, invited talks, national presentations, and peer-reviewed publications. His contributions span mechanistic toxicology, risk assessment, biomarker discovery, and preventive strategies such as zinc supplementation, advancing both scientific understanding and public health approaches to mitigate the global burden of arsenic exposure and diseases thereof.

Research Interests

The Banerjee laboratory combines classical and cutting-edge research techniques to investigate the molecular etiology of environmental health issues with a strong focus on chronic arsenic toxicity. Chronic arsenic exposure affects >225 million people in over 108 countries, leading to myriads of cancerous and non-cancerous adverse health outcomes encompassing multiple tissues, organs, and developmental stages. Since arsenic does not interact with nucleic acids, the focus of Banerjee laboratory is to elucidate how direct physical interaction of arsenic with target zinc finger proteins can modulate basic biological processes operative in every cell and tissue, contributing to multi-organ toxicity. Zinc finger proteins are abundant in the human genome, often acting as apical regulators of processes related to genome, transcriptome and proteome organization, maintenance, and expression. Thus, functional disruption of such apical regulatory proteins is expected to affect multiple facets of basic biological processes across multiple cells, tissue, and organs, leading to multi-organ toxicity. Current projects in the laboratory include understanding the molecular mechanisms of chronic arsenic exposure-induced dysregulation of transcriptome, epitranscriptome, proteome and degradome and their contribution to multi-organ toxicity. The Banerjee laboratory employs both cell culture systems (primary and immortalized) and animal models, along with a wide range of molecular biological, biophysical and omics techniques to address these research questions.

Degrees and Certifications

Publications

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