Infectious Disease and Immunology Lab 

We are a new group focusing on different aspects of infectious intracellular protozoan pathogens using Leishmania, Toxoplasma and Plasmodium as model systems.  My research has always focused on different immunological and cellular aspects of parasite biology, that enable these intracellular pathogens to survive within the hostile host environment. My scholarship has rendered around theories and methods of protozoan parasitic diseases with applications to clinical importance. We have contributed significantly to the field of drug-resistant leishmaniasis, one of the major emerging problems in India with new cases reported every year. For a better understanding of the protozoan mediated infectious disease, I started working on Plasmodium and Toxoplasma, causative agents of Malaria & Toxoplasmosis, respectively, as an EMBO-Post-doctoral fellow. My post-doctoral scholarship primarily articulated in successfully characterizing key factors involved in establishing successful infection and dissemination of apicomplexan parasites into or out of the host. During this period I also managed a collaborative project with industrial partner UCB Pharma S.A. and Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) to design biochemical assays for therapeutic development.
My research interest is interdisciplinary in nature, and our lab wants to explore the possibility to establish potent CRISPR-Cas9 based genome editing techniques in protozoan biology, which in turn could be implemented in the characterization of key components of disease pathogenesis & intra/inter species-transmission of these intracellular pathogens. Another focus of the lab would be to develop biochemical assays for activity-based protein profiling to study parasite biology with a particular view of developing them with potential translational value for pharma industries. This should also serve as the base to challenge the existing problem of drug resistance and the absence of vaccines, and help in designing novel drug targets against these pathogens which currently is affecting a huge part of the population each year.