Biography

Pursuing my interest in biology, I studied biotechnology for my Bachelor’s (2010, in Pune) and Master’s degree (2012, in New Delhi). Then, I delved into “proper” research during my Ph.D at the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, New Delhi (2018). There, I worked on biophysical aspects of chemical chaperone-assisted protein folding and investigated molecular constraints of molecular evolution. Thereon, I started my postdoc in evolutionary systems biology with Christian’s team (in beautiful Québec City). Here, I am investigating evolution of protein-protein interactions through gene editing and yeast genetics. My areas of expertise are molecular biology, computational biology and chemical biology.

Research interests

Broadly, I am interested in understanding how complex adaptive systems work. During my postdoc, I mainly focus on protein-protein interactions, which constitute a central complex adaptive system within the cell. Among protein-protein interactions, phospho-protein networks are of utmost importance owing to their fundamental role in almost all the functionalities of a cell. In order to understand fidelity within the phospho-protein networks, I will carry out network perturbations using CRISPR-based gene editing and monitor contributions of correct and mis-interactions towards cellular fitness. Alongside, I am also looking for ways to characterize edgotypic variants of unknown significance (VUS), in a high throughput manner.