I am a molecular biologist working to understand the mechanisms of vertebrate regeneration. Broadly, I am interested in how regeneration in vertebrate tissues is regulated at the level of transcription and cell signaling. While research over the past few decades has revealed the primary molecular players in regeneration, we only have a limited understanding of the dynamics of these molecules and their processes and lack information on the rules that govern them in space and time. Furthermore, understanding of how cell-cell communication within the regenerative micro-environments provides cues that tune cellular behaviors remains limited. Using state-of-the-art approaches in cell biology I am aiming to gain new quantitative insights into transcriptional regulation by cell-cell signaling in zebrafish tissues.
Currently, I am a CAGT Genome Technology Fellow in the labs of Dr. Kenneth Poss & Dr. Stefano Di Talia at Duke University where I use genomic and quantitative live imaging approaches to study mechanisms of regeneration in zebrafish. Previously, for my graduate work with Dr. Auinash Kalsotra at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, I investigated the mechanisms of liver regeneration using transgenic mouse models and genomic approaches. I did my undergraduate studies in Biochemistry at the Indian Institute of Science where I completed my thesis work on the biochemical characterization of Type II restriction-modification systems in H. pylori with Dr. D. N. Rao.