Staff Fellow — Division of Systems Biology

Vikrant Vijay, Ph.D.
(870) 543-7391
NCTRResearch@fda.hhs.gov  

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 About  |  Publications

Background

Dr. Vijay received his initial training in Veterinary Medicine. He earned a bachelor’s degree in veterinary science and animal husbandry with distinction from A.N.G.R. Agricultural University in India. He earned a master’s degree in veterinary science (Major: veterinary pharmacology and Minor: molecular biology and biotechnology) with distinction from G.B. Pant University of Agriculture & Technology in India. Dr. Vijay came to the United States to pursue his doctorate and earned his Ph.D. in comparative biomedical science — pharmacology/toxicology from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC. After a brief employment at the NIEHS/National Toxicology Program following his doctorate, Dr. Vijay accepted a postdoctoral researcher (ORISE fellow) position at NCTR in November 2009.

Since November 2012, Dr. Vijay has worked in the capacity of staff fellow in the Personalized Medicine Branch of NCTR’s Division of Systems Biology. The main focus of his research is to identify novel biomarkers of toxicity and diseases. Dr. Vijay has received numerous awards for his outstanding achievements and contributions to promote public health, which include FDA’s “Outstanding Service Award” (2014 and 2017), NCTR’s “Outstanding Service Group Award” (2014), NCTR’s “Special Act Award” (2014 and 2017), and NCTR’s “Outstanding Junior Investigator Award” (2016). In addition, Dr. Vijay has served as chair in several platform and poster sessions as well as peer mentor for the Undergraduate Education Program at Society of Toxicology meetings and supervisory mentor for undergraduate students in summer student research program at NCTR.

Research Interests

The overall goal of Dr. Vijay’s research is to safeguard public health by reducing harm from unsafe agents and to promote personalized medicine by discovering new biomarkers and understanding their role in the causation of drug-induced toxicity. Dr. Vijay is an expert in developing and utilizing diverse computational approaches to integrate, analyze, and interpret toxicological and omics data. For more than a decade, his research has been focused on advancing predictive-toxicology and precision-medicine efforts. He has made significant contributions to these fields by developing QSAR (Quantitative Structure Activity Relationship) models to predict dermal toxicity of biocides in occupational workers during his doctoral research. He has also built a liver toxicity knowledge base to help predict drug-induced liver injury during his post-doctoral research. Dr. Vijay’s ongoing research aims to identify omics biomarkers from in vivo tests that may predict occurrence of adverse effects in response to drugs such as doxorubicin in certain individuals or subpopulations and molecular biomarkers that may predict age- and sex-related susceptibilities to drug toxicities.

Drugs are developed with an aim to treat disorders and significant effort is invested to make them effective, as well as safe. While most of the patients have favorable outcomes with mild side effects, a minority of them develop serious or severe drug-induced adverse events. The reason for developing these adverse events in certain individuals can be diverse, and may be attributed to differences in genetics (molecular makeup), the way body interacts with drugs, physiological conditions, nutrition, sex, age, body composition, polypharmacy, environmental conditions, lifestyle habits, etc.

Any one or more of these aforementioned factors can cause different molecular events leading to adverse effects. An investigation of these molecular events has resulted in many predictive and diagnostic biomarkers and has improved our understanding of the toxicity mechanisms for several drugs. Therefore, Dr. Vijay’s current projects focus on using omics data to understand target organ susceptibility and possible age and/or sex differences to doxorubicin and two other classes of drugs, namely, tyrosine kinase inhibitors and drugs that affect mitochondria.

These are important regulatory science projects with major applications in FDA’s efforts to assure safe and effective drugs.

Professional Societies/National and International Groups

Sigma Xi
Full Member
2010 – 2017

Society of Toxicology

Student and Postdoc Member
2006 – 2015

Full Member
2015 – Present

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Selected Publications

Sex and Age Differences in the Expression of Liver microRNAs during the Life Span of F344 Rats.
Kwekel JC, Vijay V, Han T, Moland CL, Desai VG, Fuscoe JC.
Biol Sex Differ. 2017 Feb 3;8:6.

Stably Expressed Genes Involved in Basic Cellular Functions.
Wang K, Vijay V and Fuscoe JC.
PLoS One. 2017 Jan 26;12(1):e0170813.

Sex-Related Differential Susceptibility to Doxorubicin-Induced Cardiotoxicity in B6C3F1 Mice.
Jenkins GR, Lee T, Moland CL, Vijay V, Herman EH, Lewis SM, Davis KJ, Muskhelishvili L, Kerr S, Fuscoe JC, Desai VG.
Toxicol Appl Pharmacol. 2016 Nov 1; 310:159-174.

Early Metabolomics Changes in Heart and Plasma During Chronic Doxorubicin Treatment in B6C3F1 Mice.
Schnackenberg LK, Pence L, Vijay V, Moland CL, George N, Cao Z, Yu LR, Fuscoe JC, Beger RD, Desai VG.
J Appl Toxicol. 2016 Nov; 36(11):1486-95.

Early Transcriptional Changes in Cardiac Mitochondria During Chronic Doxorubicin Exposure and Mitigation by Dexrazoxane in Mice.
Vijay V, Moland CL, Han T, Fuscoe JC, Lee T, Herman EH, Jenkins GR, Lewis SM, Cummings CA, Gao Y, Cao Z, Yu LR, Desai VG.
Toxicol Appl Pharmacol. 2016 Mar 15; 295:68-84.

Reproductive Hormone Levels and Differential Mitochondria-Related Oxidative Gene Expression as Potential Mechanisms for Gender Differences in Cardiosensitivity to Doxorubicin in Tumor-Bearing Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats.
Gonzalez Y, Pokrzywinski KL, Rosen ET, Mog S, Aryal B, Chehab LM, Vijay V, Moland CL, Desai VG, Dickey JS, Rao VA.
Cancer Chemother Pharmacol. 2015 Sep; 76(3):447-59.

Age and Sex Differences in Kidney MicroRNA Expression During the Life Span of F344 Rats.
Kwekel JC, Vijay V, Desai VG, Moland CL, Fuscoe JC.
Biol Sex Differ. 2015 Jan 28; 6(1):1.

Sexual Dimorphism in the Expression of Mitochondria-Related Genes in Rat Heart at Different Ages.
Vijay V, Han T, Moland CL, Kwekel JC, Fuscoe JC, Desai VG.
PLoS One. 2015 Jan 23; 10(1):e0117047.

Early Biomarkers of Doxorubicin-Induced Heart Injury in a Mouse Model.
Desai VG, C Kwekel J, Vijay V, Moland CL, Herman EH, Lee T, Han T, Lewis SM, Davis KJ, Muskhelishvili L, Kerr S, Fuscoe JC.
Toxicol Appl Pharmacol. 2014 Dec 1; 281(2):221-9.

Life Cycle Analysis of Kidney Gene Expression in Male F344 Rats.
Kwekel JC, Desai VG, Moland CL, Vijay V, Fuscoe JC.
PLoS One. 2013 Oct 7; 8(10):e75305.

Sex Differences in Kidney Gene Expression During the Life Cycle of F344 Rats.
Kwekel JC, Desai VG, Moland CL, Vijay V, Fuscoe JC.
Biol Sex Differ. 2013 Jul 31; 4(1):14.

FDA-Approved Drug Labeling for the Study of Drug-Induced Liver Injury.
Chen M, Vijay V, Shi Q, Liu Z, Fang H, Tong W.
Drug Discov Today. 2011 Aug; 16(15-16):697-703.

Selection of Appropriate Training Set of Chemicals for Modeling Dermal Permeability Using Uniform Coverage Design.
Vijay V, Baynes RE, Young SS, Riviere JE.
QSAR and Combinatorial Science. 2009 December 14; 28(11-12):1478-1486.

Dermal Permeation of Biocides and Aromatic Chemicals in Three Generic Formulations of Metalworking Fluids.
Vijay V, White EM, Kaminski MD Jr, Riviere JE, Baynes RE.
J Toxicol Environ Health A. 2009; 72(13):832-41.

A Solvatochromatic Approach to Quantifying Formulation Effects on Dermal Permeability.
Baynes RE, Xia XR, Vijay V, Riviere JE.
SAR QSAR Environ Res. 2008; 19(7-8):615-30.

Predicting Dermal Permeability of Biocides in Commercial Cutting Fluids Using a LSER Approach.
Vijay V, Yeatts JL Jr, Riviere JE, Baynes RE.
Toxicol Lett. 2007 Dec 10; 175(1-3):34-43.

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