BIOLOGICAL NETWORKS &
SYSTEMS BIOLOGY LAB

I am computational biologist by training and have around 12 years of experience. I have a broad expertise in different fields of computational biology spanning across biological scales. I have used various techniques like constraint-based modeling, kinetic modeling, omics data integration into biological networks, statistical regression models, machine learning, genomics, transcriptomics and bioinformatics.

I am a former alumnus of CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India where I did my PhD under the guidance of Dr. Ram Rup Sarkar. During my PhD, I predominantly worked on understanding both the genotype (comparative codon usage) and the metabolic phenotype (constraint-based modeling of genome-scale metabolism) of the eukaryotic parasite Leishmania (causative organism of Leishmaniasis) to decipher stage and species-specific adaptations of the parasite in the host environment. I also worked on other projects involving the development of machine learning pipelines, kinetic modeling of biochemical pathways and population dynamics in various biological systems.

During my postdoctoral research, I shifted gears to work on a more complex biological system - human endothelial cells (EC) and their roles in pathological angiogenesis (in tumors, macular degeneration) in Prof. Peter Carmeliet's lab, VIB-KU Leuven Center for Cancer Biology, Leuven, Belgium. Prof. Carmeliet is one of the world's most renowned vascular biologists and I was fortunate to work with him. I developed genome-scale metabolic models for different EC types by integrating high-throughput (bulk and single-cell) ‘omics’ datasets to predict anti-angiogenic metabolic targets and designed experiments to validate them in in vitro human umbilical vein ECs and in vivo (laser-induced ocular injury) mouse models. Apart from my own project, I also collaborated in many different projects involving single-cell omics data analysis, network inference and machine learning.

On the basis of research experience and contributions, I was offered a Staff scientist position at my postdoctoral lab to head a team of bioinformaticians and develop machine learning models for predicting novel immunosuppressive and anti-proliferative genes in endothelial cells in various biological contexts.

During this period, I was also awarded the DBT - Ramalingaswami Re-entry Fellowship, a fellowship that offers a chance to return back to India and setup your own lab. I got simultaneously selected for an Assistant Professor position at IIT - Hyderabad. At IIT-Hyderabad, my research group is looking forward to work on exciting topics that unravel biological mechanisms / pathways from biological omics data using systems biology approaches. If you are interested in working or interacting with our group, feel free to email me. We welcome out-of-the-box, unconventional thinking that can lead towards disruptive science.