author interview

Srinivas Allanki is from Eluru, Andhra Pradesh, India. He did his Bachelor’s and Master’s (Dual-Degree) in Biotechnology from the Department of Biotechnology at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras). His Master’s research, under the joint supervision of Prof. Madhulika Dixit and Prof. Nandan Kumar Sinha, mainly focused on devising strategies to analyze and model transcriptomic data. After graduating from IIT Madras in 2016, he joined the research group of Dr. Sven Reischauer in the Department of Developmental Genetics led by Prof. Didier Stainier at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research, Bad Nauheim, Germany. The primary goal of his doctoral research is to identify and characterize the molecular mechanisms that orchestrate tissue regeneration in zebrafish, paving the way for potential therapeutic strategies in human regenerative medicine. He identified Interleukin-11 signaling as a global regenerative pathway in zebrafish that suppresses scar formation. This work was recently published in Science Advances. He currently continues to investigate the molecular and genetic consequences of Interleukin-11 signaling during regeneration and scarring after tissue damage, in Dr. Reischauer’s group in the Department of Experimental Cardiology, Justus-Liebig University Giessen, Giessen, Germany, which focuses on cardiac development and pathologies.

Shravan Sreenivasan is currently working as a Ph.D Research Scholar with Prof. Anurag S. Rathore at Bioprocessing & Bio-Separations Laboratory, Department of Chemical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. As part of the Ph.D, he is working on degradation of therapeutic proteins. Before joining IIT Delhi, he had worked at Curateq Biologics (Aurobindo Pharma), Hyderabad. He has done his M.Tech in Bioprocess Technology from Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai and B.Tech in Biochemical Engineering from University of Kerala.

Nidhi Verma completed her graduation from G.N Khalsa College, Mumbai. Followed by her Post-graduation from Institute of Science, Mumbai. Always been attracted by science as a child was inquisitive about practically everything. Because of her compassion, she decided to pursue science further. With time, learning new scientific areas became more appealing, but nano diagnostics stood out as a promising area as it offered to use nanotechnology in affordable disease diagnosis. Currently, a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Advanced Research, Gandhinagar working under the supervision of Dr. Alok Pandya, exploring myriad of avenues for disease detection using paper microfluidics. Her research area also includes developing paper-based electrochemical sensors for disease detection. Apart from being in research, she is also a canophilist at heart. 

Dr. Sampurna Gara is a Ph.D. in Life Sciences (2016), Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She pursued her Ph.D. under Prof Baishnab Tripathy. For her Ph.D. dissertation, she studied the changes in nitrogen and sulfur metabolism in plants through the modulation of enzymes involved in the siroheme biosynthesis pathway. Thereafter, she worked as a post-doc with Prof Sopory studying the light and abiotic stress signalling crosstalk. She has been awarded CSIR-SRA (Pool Scientist) fellowship and is currently working on the characterisation of prion-like proteins in rice with Dr. Sneh Pareek at Plant Stress Biology group, ICGEB, New Delhi.

Dr. Pushpa Kumari is an example of multicultural India. She studied in various Kendriya Vidyalayas throughout the country for schooling, which helped her explore and understand our country’s diversity and multi-faceted culture. While growing up among different communities and understanding other languages made her know how a particular society thrives and ignited her interest in understanding the mechanics of diverse living systems. She completed her formal integrated bachelor’s degree (B.Sc-B.Ed), where she gained knowledge of plant and animal systems. She understood how chemistry works in its way into these living systems while getting trained to become a professional teacher. As fate had it, she went on to pursue her Master’s degree in Biotechnology from Ramachandra Medical College and Research Institute, Chennai, which helped her strengthen her basic foundation in biomedical science. She further pursued her career in Developmental Biology under the Supervision of Dr. K. Subramaniam – one of the pioneers of the Caenorhabditis elegans (roundworm) model system in India – at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. Pushpa was awarded Junior Research Fellowship from CSIR and a National Doctoral Fellowship from AICTE. After completing her Ph.D. in biological sciences, she developed a research interest. She further followed her career in cell and developmental biology and became a Post-Doctoral fellow with Dr. Sivaram Mylavarapu at the Regional Centre for Biotechnology Faridabad. She won her first independent research grant as an Early Career Fellowship from the DBT/Wellcome India Alliance. Pushpa Kumari, in the future, wants to pursue her career in academic research and contribute to the field of Reproductive Biology.