Sukanya Madhwal completed her Master’s degree in Biotechnology from Banasthali Vidyapith, Rajasthan. She then worked as a graduate teacher for a year at P.G. College, Kotdwara, Uttarakhand. In 2014, she qualified the JGEEBILS exam conducted by NCBS/TIFR and joined Dr. Tina Mukherjee’s lab at inStem as a Research Scholar (Ph.D. student). Her research has made key contributions to our understanding of immunity in Drosophila. Sukanya aspires to continue her research journey in the field of immunology. Outside the lab, she enjoys reading non-fiction, gardening, and cooking.
In this interview, Sukanya discusses her first-author work titled “Metabolic control of cellular immune-competency by odors in Drosophila”, published in eLife in 2020.
Author interview
How would you explain your paper’s key results to the non-scientific community?
The sense of smell (olfaction) influences how animals behave — helping them find food, mates, or avoid danger. Interestingly, there’s also a link between smell and the immune system, although this connection hasn’t been well explored, especially during development or infection.
Using Drosophila (fruit flies) as a model, we investigated how odors affect immune cell behavior. By using genetic tools, we disrupted the flies’ sense of smell and studied how their immune systems responded to infections.
We discovered that flies with impaired smell — either due to genetics or being raised in odorless conditions — were unable to produce enough specialized immune cells called lamellocytes when infected by parasitic wasps. These immune cells are crucial for fighting off such infections. This revealed that sensing environmental odors during development is important for building a strong immune defense system.
Mechanistically, we found that odors trigger neurons in the brain to release a molecule called GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) into the circulatory fluid (hemolymph). GABA then travels to the lymph gland, where blood progenitor cells are stored, and influences them through a metabolic pathway called the GABA-shunt pathway. This pathway is essential for making the blood cells immune-competent.
Furthermore, exposing flies to the odor of wasps during development enhanced their immune response by increasing lamellocyte production — suggesting that odor exposure can “prime” the immune system.
What are the possible consequences of these findings for your research area?
This work expands our understanding of how the sense of smell can shape the immune system. It shows that environmental odors during development affect metabolism in immune progenitor cells, helping them become more competent.
Because Drosophila shares many similarities with mammalian systems, our findings pave the way to explore similar olfactory-immune links in human blood stem cells. This also opens the door to future strategies where immune cells could be trained using specific odors — a novel approach to enhancing immune defenses.
This study asserts promising avenues where immune cells can be trained using different odors to modulate the immune cell repertoire.
What was the exciting moment (eureka moment) during your research?
Initially, our focus was on studying how GABA metabolism affected blood progenitor cells. As a side exploration, we wondered whether disrupting GABA metabolism would influence immune response. To our surprise, flies with disrupted GABA metabolism failed to mount a proper immune response because they couldn’t produce lamellocytes. That was a major eureka moment — it led us to uncover the olfaction-immune link, which became the central theme of our research.
What do you hope to do next?
I plan to study the role of GABA metabolism in mature blood cells, particularly plasmatocytes, which are equivalent to macrophages in the mammalian system.
Where do you seek scientific inspiration?
I am extremely grateful to have conducted my Ph.D. under Dr. Tina Mukherjee’s guidance. Her mentorship helped shape my scientific thinking and research skills. The vibrant scientific environment at inStem constantly inspired me to learn and explore.
Since childhood, I have been deeply inspired by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam — his dedication to science and service to the country continues to motivate me. Reading scientific literature and engaging with peers keeps my passion for science alive.
How do you intend to help Indian science improve?
With experience as a graduate teacher and research mentor, I strongly believe that young minds are the backbone of any nation’s scientific growth. Cultivating curiosity and a love for science in students during their school and college years is crucial.
To strengthen this, we need more outreach programs, better engagement between scientists and students, and opportunities to conduct research beyond the textbooks. I hope to continue contributing as both a researcher and teacher — nurturing the next generation of Indian scientists.
Reference
Sukanya Madhwal, Mingyu Shin, Ankita Kapoor, Manisha Goyal, Manish K. Joshi, Pirzada Mujeeb Ur Rehman, Kavan Gor, Jiwon Shim, Tina Mukherjee.
Metabolic control of cellular immune-competency by odors in Drosophila.
eLife 2020;9:e60376. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.60376
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