Babli was trying to understand the role of actin in tissue mechanics during Drosophila embryogenesis during her internship in Prof. Adam Martin’s lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Multicellular organisms originating from a single cell, has to undergo a myriad of mechanical transformation to acquire its final form and function. Epithelial cells in embryo have polarized actomyosin structures acting as ropes which are responsible for stable contractile force generation to undergo desired mechanical change. How do the differential levels of actin and its dynamics regulates cellular constriction, stretching or intercalation across a tissue is not yet understood properly. She aimed to answer these questions using various gene knockdown experiments along with destabilizing actin dynamics using drugs and finally supporting the data with quantification modeling. Understanding this behavior can have a direct implication to understand and treat various diseases related to development as well as angiogenesis which involves similar tissue mechanics.
Richa is researching the synthesis and characterization of 2D materials. She will be using high temperature vacuum furnaces to grow GaSe thin film. And, then she will characterize the grown materials using Atomic force microscopy, Raman Spectroscopy and Photoluminescence spectroscopy she will characterize these materials and their opto-electronic properties.
2018 Khorana Scholar who worked with Aseem Ansari. In the lab, Aimen is Establishing Reporter Lines for detecting Friedreich Ataxia (FXN) Gene Reactivation in Human Neural Cells using the CRISPR/ Cas9 Genome editing method.
Unnati is studiyng survey Report on Designs of Experiments to determine the 3 neutrino mass hierarchy and laboratory work on development and characterisation of Avalanche photo diode detectors.
Alok worked at the Materials Research Institute at Penn State. He was studying the properties of 2D materials and learning the various methods to characterize them. He is using high-temperature vacuum furnaces to grow InSe, GaSe thin layers on Epitaxial Graphene. To study their properties he was using Scanning Electron Microscopy, Atomic Force Microscopy, Raman Spectroscopy etc.
2018 Khorana Scholar who worked at John Hopkins University under Professor Trina Schroer.
“The focus of my project is to study cargo binding and regulation of Cytoplasmic Dynein motor and Dynactin. It involves development of TetR-shRNA constructs for inducible knockdown of targeted subunits of the Dynactin complex and analysis of its effects on the cargo binding ability of the Dynein-Dynactin-Activating Adaptor Complex, using live cell imaging. Simultaneously, it also involves studying the effects of mutations at sites of phosphorylation of the p25 subunit of the Dynactin complex on cargo binding and other phenotypes like cell cycle progression and primary cilia-genesis.”
2018 Khorana who worked with Yiping Qi. “I improve plant genome editing tools using molecular biology techniques to simplify genetic manipulation of crop plants. Specifically, these tools like base editors and CRISPR based tools are for activation and/or repression of targeted genes.”
Richa’s research is “NON UREMIC CALCIPHYLAXIS” highly fatal and extremely rare disease of “ Non Uremic Calciphylaxis ”, which has a reported mortality rate of 81% within 6 months of diagnosis , which is much more than many of the stage IV malignancies. It is an ischaemic vasculopathy characterized by the deposition of calcium within the media of small and intermediate dermal vasculature which can lead to epidermal ischaemia , ulceration and necrosis. It is usually seen in end stage kidney disease patients but i am working on that disease that develops in non kidney disease patients.
2018 Khorana Scholar who went to Northwestern University and worked under William Klein.
My main project is “Studies of brain cell loss caused by the toxic amyloid beta oligomers linked to Alzheimer’s dementia.” I am working on two things: one is to study the role of amyloid beta oligomers in the CNS development; the other one is to confirm the binding of synthetically produced fluorescent peptides with the amyloid beta oligomers.
I’m a 4th year MD/PhD dual degree student, currently working towards my PhD in Epidemiology. My research interests are in the area of healthcare-associated infections, especially those related to antibiotic resistance and Clostridium difficile globally. Outside of work I enjoy cooking, photography, reading, and travel.
“I will be working under Vaishnavi Ananthanarayanan on a project focusing on the role of a microtubule-mitochondria system in symmetric cell division. Research will center specifically on how a fused mitochondrial network affects the cell’s ability to accurately position the nucleus during fission.” Elsa’s internship is located at Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.
I am a senior undergraduate at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and a 2019 Khorana scholar.
My work at the Nowicki lab at Duke University involved exploring the effects of categorical colour perception on mate choice in zebra finches. Realistic animations of videos of singing males were used in a two-choice experimental set-up to determine the preference of females under highly controlled conditions. Data were also collected to investigate the role of luminance in categorical colour perception in these birds. I also picked up fieldwork techniques such as misnetting and banding/ tagging, essential for an ecologist. In addition, birdcare (handling and rearing of bird populations in the lab) comprised a major part of my learning experience in the lab. I was also exposed to the rich field of bird-song, another primary area of research in the lab. My work would help further current understanding of how animals perceive the world and influence our knowledge of the evolution of colour-based signals in the animal kingdom.
Mahak’s research interests lie in the field of Oncology. She will do her internship at Indiana University School of Medicine under the mentorship of Prof. Edward A. Motea. During her stay in the lab, she will investigate the mechanism of action of a novel tumor- selective DNA damaging anti-cancer agent as a monotherapy and in combination with DNA repair inhibitors.
I am interested in understanding the cellular mechanisms aimed at maintaining genome stability, and in the mechanisms involved in stable epigenetic mechanisms across generations.
I worked with Prof. Aravinthan Samuel at Harvard University. I performed analyses of courtship and mating in C. elegans to better understand the neural basis of decision making in a small circuit with a complete connectome. My discoveries by performing experiments between C. elegans males and hermaphrodites of different genetic backgrounds highlighted new aspects of sensory perception.
“My project involves using data science in order to obtain models for aerodynamic prediction, which are trained using CFD and physical experiment data. These models can then predict flow fields and forces on bodies at a fraction of the time and cost taken by CFD and physical experiments. The present focus is on achieving this through the use of Convolutional Neural Networks.”
“The project is to synthesize faces of different ages using Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). The goal is to see if by using these augmented faces, whether age estimation algorithms can be improved and by how much.”
I am currently pursuing my B.Tech and M.Tech Dual Degree in Biotechnology from the KIIT School of Biotechnology, Bhubaneswar, Odisha. I want to become a scientist and focus on understanding genetic diseases. My research interests include cancer biology, stem cells and molecular biology. I have been selected at Yale University under Prof. Lilian Kabeche.
Noah went to the Tibetan Delek Hospital with the goal to develop a concrete plan that can be used as the Zero TB program expands it’s reach into other boarding schools, monasteries, and nunneries. The project focused on the physicians, nurses, and administration at Tibetan Delek Hospital, Zero TB staff, individuals identified as latent TB infected and who have undergone preventative treatment, their family, as well as the school nurses who administer INH therapy.
Arnab worked on turbulence modeling using Partially Average Navier-Stokes (PANS) method with Prof. Girimaji at Texas A&M University. He implemented this technique on OpenFOAM, an open source efficient software package and he captured the results of this numerical experiment by using ParaView software which is very efficient flow visualization software. However, the ultimate expectation of the work was to predict the behavior of complex turbulent flow in presence of any rigid structure which is very significant fluid-structure interaction (FSI) problem for growing Mechanical, Energy, Ocean and Aerospace Engineering field.
“I am working on developing camera calibration algorithms adapted for diverse multi camera networks. These calibrated camera networks can then be used for various 3D Computer Vision applications.”
The Ha lab uses single-molecule detection methods to study complex biological systems including biophysical techniques like multicolor fluorescence, super-resolution imaging, combined force and fluorescence spectroscopy and single-molecule pull-down. During her project, Ahana worked on a project related to chromatin remodeler SWR1 and the mechanism by which it causes H2A to H2A-Z dimer exchange in nucleosomes using single molecule techniques.
Maharrish was working on tumor microenvironment. Immune cells, Endothelial cells, Stromal cells and Extra cellular matrix constitutes microenvironment which are all vital drivers for metastasis. He was working on CCR2 (molecule expressed by myeloid and tumor cells which is important for metastasis) Knock out mice and characterizing the efficacy of adopted CD8+ T cell transfer. He is also characterizing the antigens released by irradiated tumor cells that can activate Dendritic cells for active presentation and ultimately these antigens can be used in tumor therapeutic next generation vaccine.
Shubham is studying physiological and genetic basis of stress resistance in 288 genetic lines of cultivated sunflowers, in a large greenhouse study at the UGA
2018 Khorana Scholar who worked with Georg Jander. His project was “Maize-insect interactions : Study of corn leaf aphid(Rhopalosiphum maidis) or in general insect induced genes in maize lines. Mainly genes like bx1/bx2 and involved in synthesis of benzoxazinoids and terpenes defense volatile compunds respectively against insects and various pests.”
Host: The Institute of Trans-Disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology (TDU)
Michael from the Biology Department of University of Wisconsin Madison, is going to the Institute of Trans-Disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology to work with Dr. Ashwini Godbole. Michael is going to be working on neurological research with a hope that he might be able to gain some insight and experience into Ayurvedic medicine, for which India has the most notable and established universities and current research.
Meghomita worked on understanding the deformation mechanism that characterized the Alleghanian plateau by looking at Microstructures taken from samples along the Towanda fault in Towanda, Pennsylvania.
Asimanshu is working on the Ground Vibration test of the X-HALE a High Altitude Long endurance aircraft. The GVT data are used to validate analytical vibration and flight control models by measuring flight control transfer functions and structural frequency response functions. He is also validating it with standard FEM codes.This project is used to validate the non linear aeroelastic code UM -NAST developed by University of Michigan.
Suchintak worked on Carbon nanotubes field effect transistors (FET) specifically for biomedical applications. They worked on synthesizing the nanotubes by chemical vaporization method and then characterized them by scanning electron microscope and Raman spectroscopy. Then they worked upon the functionalization of the transistors.
Sumjit was at UChicago in Prof. Bryan Dickinson’s lab, his project is primarily focused onto modifying the Split RNAP system by changing their binding partners with Ras and Raf proteins. Upregulation of these proteins have been shown to cause tumorigenesis and cancer, so they have become topics of intense research. Transfection of these protein chimeric constructs into mammalian cells and subsequent study of their biological properties would be helpful to understand the process better and help to develop inhibitors.
I worked on designing an “Evaluation Board for a non-magnetic CMOS based Circulator”. Non-reciprocal devices such as circulators have immense application in communication, radar, imaging and sensing. Such devices are mostly made from magneto-optical materials which are bulky, expensive and they cannot be easily integrated on a CMOS based integrated circuit.
Recently, non-magnetic CMOS based circulators have been demonstrated and they have a lot of potential.
The designed evaluation board, which provides an interface to use this new circulator, will be sent to other research groups so that they can easily experiment with the circulator for new applications.
Nishtha is an aspiring biotechnologist passionate about science of stem cells, epigenetics and cancer biology. She would describe herself as a dedicated student with a never giving up nature.
Vishal is researching the detection of morphological differences in tissues in the context of osteoarthritis. His project is based on the registration of two images to analyse effect of bone development in osteoarthritis.
Hrishikesh worked in the non destructive evaluation laboratory of Michigan State University under the guidance of Prof Lalita Udpa. He was involved in a project of design of simulation model for eddy current steam generator inspection. His work was to develop a noise simulator which is to be integrated to the model. This was done by injection of random and systematic noise into the signals and observing the corresponding changes in the output using signal processing techniques.
Sourav researched on “Polyhydroxyalkanoates production from methanotrophic and non-methanotrophic organisms”. He collected information on how microorganisms accumulate biopolymer inside their cell. The biopolymers can be extracted and purified from the microorganisms. All these factors will be helpful to facilitate the industrial scale production of polyhydroxyalkanoates.
Amir is doing his research on a NASA Project that looks at the transformation of Cyanobacteria with alkane producing gene for the production of biofuel
Siddhesh worked under Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone to evaluate neuroplasticity in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). Siddhesh was using particular transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) protocols for this purpose. His project looked specifically at aMCI patients who do not have the significant (above prescribed threshold) Amyloid beta load in the brain regions associated with awareness about memory impairment and self-referential processing. He also did related course work on TMS and tDCS offered during his internship.
Natalie is investigating mechanism of Orb2 dependent long term maintenance of memory in Drosophila – Research focuses on studying the proteins involved in the regulation of memory
Vrushali assisted in a research project named-“Concrete Breakout Behaviour of Embed Plates with Welded Deformed Reinforcing Bars”. She carried out analysis using the software-ABAQUS by changing parameters in order to capture concrete breakout failure modes. The models were calibrated with the data obtained from the experimental tests conducted previously. Meanwhile she also gained some lab floor experience by working with a team on-“Seismic Behaviour of Concrete Wall under Thermal effects “.
Ishu is researching on estimating the structure and motion from Videos. He will be using Deep Neural Networks to train a model that decomposes frame-to-frame pixel motion in terms of scene and object depth, camera motion and 3D object rotations and translations. The model when trained can be used to predict depth maps from the single monocular 2-d image and predict the pose and motion from two consecutive images of the video.
I did my summer research internship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign under the guidance of Prof. Chad Rienstra. My project was on the quest of searching lattice structure and dynamics of celebrated antifungal drug Amphotericin-B (AmB) and its interaction with Cholesterol and Ergosterol. The motivation of this project was to understand the working mechanism of the drug inside a cell. Since AmB is also a nephrotoxin and kills good cells (presumably by binding with Cholesterol) besides killing fungal cells (binding with Ergosterol), a modified structure of AmB for targeted functionality is necessary. I used solid-state NMR data of AmB from various experiments and conducted molecular dynamics simulations with restraint inputs from the NMR NOE data. I’m currently continuing to contribute to the project by doing Density Functional theoretic calculations to understand UV-Vis spectrum of the AmB lattice.
Mohit worked on Active Flow Control for drag reduction due to wall turbulence. He was using blowing/suction actuation to suppress the turbulent coherent structures in the flow. The flow bed had an array of sensors to detect the pressure fluctuations at the wall and blowing/suction will be performed accordingly. To design the experimental setup, simulations were performed using resolvent Spectral method.
Pallav is studying Invariant Theory of General Linear Groups over Finite Fields – They are trying to describe the generators of the invariant ring of general linear groups over finite fields due to their action on a quotient subring of the polynomial ring
I was in my third year, pursuing a Bachelor in Pharmacy when I got my acceptance as a Khorana Scholar. Having developed an interest in Neuroscience in an earlier internship, I ventured to explore it further as a Khorana Scholar. Though the pandemic set a major roadblock, my mentor, Dr. Subhojit Roy at UCSD was gracious and let me sit in on some of the lab meetings, which were online, and I look forward to working with him in person next year!
Prakhar is an Integrated MSc. in Chemistry (5 years) student at the National Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhubaneshwar. He has previous research experience in photochemistry, metal-organic frameworks, and supramolecular chemistry. He is currently doing his master’s project in porphyrin chemistry with a focus on modulating non-Hückel aromaticity under Prof. A. Srinivasan. He was looking forward to working on synthesizing novel polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) for application in spintronics in summer 2020.
Chinmay is a medical student with interests in neurology and optogenetics. Besides, he is also a published science communicator and plans to work on health equity in the future. He was selected to work on understanding the neural mechanisms of sensory processing and decision making in the lab of Dr.Venkatesh Murthy at Harvard University.
Sunil is studying circumgalactic medium (CGM) at low redshift. He is looking optical and IR spectroscopic data from the Lick and Keck telescopes and trying to characterise the medium around emission line galaxies (ELGs) or starforming galaxies through the spectral absorption features of background quasars.
Daniel Howard, a 2015 S.N. Bose scholar, spent his summer in Bengaluru, India at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Centre for Applicable Mathematics (TIFR-CAM) with Prof. Praveen Chandrasekhar. Collaborating with Prof. Dinshaw Balsara from the University of Notre Dame, research work focused on computatonal fluid dynamics and discontinuous Galerkin methods. Daniel received his B.S. in Applied Mathematics, Engineering, and Physics (AMEP) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in May 2015 and is now a Ph.D. graduate student at the University of Notre Dame in the Department of Applied & Computational Mathematics & Statistics (ACMS).
Kanika is studying the production of biofuels using Zymomomas using MEP pathway which is used to make isoprenoid. They are trying to clone 5 enzymes of this pathway and incorporate this plasmid into zymomonas for bioduels biofuels production
Atishay is in a lab researching “Karma” – An information integration tool that enables users to quickly and easily integrate data from a variety of data sources.
Prerna used CRISPR gene editing technology to study the functions of certain membrane trafficking proteins in the early secretory pathway. She worked on screening cell lines for functional proteins which have a detectable tag edited into them using Western Blot and Confocal Microscopy techniques. After that, she used live cell imaging to view these proteins and understand their function.
Currently I am a final year B. Tech student in the department of Biotechnology of Heritage Institute of Technology, Kolkata. I was an Indian Academy of Sciences fellow in the summer of 2019 and worked in International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, New Delhi. My research interests include Medicinal biology, Oncology and Neurosciences. I want to join a Ph.D. course after my undergraduate studies to explore the world of research and development more. As a Khorana scholar I got selected to work under the supervision of Dr. Kallol Gupta in the Yale University.
I am currently in my masters final year, Department of Biochemistry, Aligarh Muslim University. The field of study that always boggled my mind and intrigued me is molecular oncology.
Student of M.Tech. Biomedical Engineering, Riya has a strong desire to explore and contribute to this field of research. Riya has been selected for internship under Dr Will Klein, Northwestern University, Chicago.
My name is Meera Joy, currently a 4th year Integrated BS-MS student at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Tirupati (IISER-T), majoring in Chemistry. I would like to work in the interface of chemistry and biology. I am interested in applying chemical synthesis in the field of Biology/Medicine to synthesize biologically relevant molecules including drug molecules.
With my background in applied mathematics, and interest in the field of renewable energy, my research task as assigned by Dr. Dutta was to develop models that simulate and optimize renewable energy systems using mathematics.
Jyotsna interned at Tulane University, in the department of Tropical medicine. My work is on the malarial vaccines. In this project she was studying the cross reactivity of two malarial antigens respectively from P.vivax and P. falciparum.The sequence similarity found via bioinformatics tools, was the foundation of this research. Now via western blotting, Immunofluorescence assay, ELISA and mammalian transfection techniques they were trying to see their epitope cross reactivity. Also, she was planning to study some epigenetic techniques.
Waquar Kaleem was at Penn State during summers of 2019 researching under Professor Sanjay Srinivasan on Lattice Boltzamann simulations for predicting CO2 plume migrations in saline aquifers.
US Bose 2016 Scholar Shilpa is investigating the Relationship Between Usual Diet and Prevalence of Infections with Multi-Drug Resistant Organisms (MDRO) in Gurgaon, Haryana, India
Ananth is studying polymer conformations in ionic liquids. The aim of the project is to find the dependence of polymer size on the molecular weight, when the polymer is dissolved in an ionic liquid. The polymers studied are PEO and NIPAM. The studies will be conducted using rheology and light scattering techniques.
Sudharsan was researching to understand the role of FMRP & FXR2P genes in the neurogenesis, a process affected in a number of neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders, including fragile X syndrome. His lab was attempting to figure out whether removing Fmrp in progenitor cells or immature neurons (DCX+ cells) harms their development in any way. He does genotyping and sectioning the brains using sliding microtome to mount the sections & trace neurons using Apotome microscope
Manaswini is researching the effect of changing extracellular potassium ion concentration in action potential firing frequency of the crab somato-gastric nervous system.
Tathagata worked on analyzing the relationship between galaxy sizes and their host dark matter halo sizes in illustris simulations. Another part of the project was matching the results from simulations with observed result from GAMA and Candels (survey).
Tejaswini was researching biochemistry and molecular biology of Alzheimer’s disease at Department of Neurobiology, Klein Lab, Northwestern University, Illinois. The unifying aim of her lab was to ‘Make Alzheimer’s a Memory!’ Alzheimer’s is a current pressing ailment worldwide, numbers expected to rise to 70 million by 2030. Her lab had discovered the Amyloid Beta Oligomers, the bad guys of AD, in 1998. Broadly put, Tejaswini’s work was centered around arresting Abeta Oligomers’ fibrillogenesis by chemically cross-linking and hence stabilizing them, thereby preventing the formation of Amyloid fibrils. She will be using immunotechniques like High Precision Coomassie Assay, Western Blot, Silver Staining, Immunofluorescence Assays to detect and quantify AbO.
Currently a Chemistry undergraduate at St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi, I’m particularly interested in the glycobiology of host-pathogen interactions and immune evasion, synthetic organic chemistry and its applications in designing artificial life. I was placed at Dr. Nikhil Malvankar’s Lab at Yale University – my project would have been on investigating the role of Geobacter ‘nanowires’ in bacterial adhesion to the host and metabolism in disease. It’s been downright phenomenal to be a Khorana scholar, and a part of the WinStep Forward community – I’m beyond grateful for this opportunity.
The Klein Lab discovered that amyloid-beta oligomers (AβOs) causes neuronal death and ultimately dementia in Alzheimer’s disease. My research was on understanding the cellular and subcellular localization of AβOs in isolated CNS neurons. This was done by isolating neurons from chick embryo retina and performing immunocytochemistry to check the distribution and localization of AβOs . AβOs were found mainly in ganglion cells and subcellularly found in cell body and processes of the neurons.
Anuja’s project is studying a norovirus is the most common cause of gastroenteritis in the world. The ORF1 of this virus encodes a polypeptide which is cleaved by a protease to form non structural proteins. The project is to study the effect of various protease inhibitors on the Houston variety of this virus (HOV) and find the most potent inhibitor of HOV protease.
Mayuri’s research focused on the synthesis and characterization of Cross-linked Polymerized Ionic Liquids. She characterized them for their potential use as actuators, piezoelectric materials as well as in electro-adhesion with the help of AC-Impedance Spectroscopy. Other characterization techniques that she used for analyzing the Polymer Ionic Liquid gel are Differential Scanning Calorimetry, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and Dynamic Mechanical Analysis.
Vimal, a medical student from the University of Wisconsin Madison who majored in Molecular and Cellular Biology is going to Dr. Shroff’s Charity Eye Hospital in Daryaganj, Delhi to work with Sunita Arora. Vimal is going to too evaluate the impact of COP program on ophthalmic service delivery at SCEH and on quality of life of COP Graduates post one year of employment.
Host: University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center
2016 Khorana Scholars
Siva Sai is researching nucleic acid delivery using nanoparticles- to deliver different mRNA , tRNA , sgRNA using lipid nanoparticles for gene editing purposes.
Vivek’s lab is called “The Effect on the size distribution of the Nano-particles by the application of DC as well as AC Electric field to the Flame System with different geometry”. Along with this they will also focus on doing charge fraction, size distribution measurement, and SEM TEM imaging of Nano-particles.
The topic that Rhaul is studying is Rhodopsin Biosynthesis and Disc Formation in Rod Photoreceptor cell Description: Photoreceptor cells are a specialized type of neuron found in the retina that absorb and convert photons into electrical signals. They are essential for initiating the phototransduction cascade, which ultimately leads to visual perception. There are two types of photoreceptors: rods and cones. Rods are located in the outer regions of the retina and allow us to see in dim light as well as dark conditions. Rhodopsin is the light sensitive visual pigment in rods that allows humans to see in these low light conditions. Cones, on the other hand, reside mostly in the central portion of the retina and allow us to perceive fine visual detail and color. Both rods and cones are comprised of an outer segment full of discrete membranous discs, an inner segment, a nuclear layer, and a synaptic terminal. My project focuses on understanding rhodopsin biosynthesis and disc formation patterns in rod outer segments (ROS). It is widely accepted that disc formation in mammalian rods follows a 10-day cycle and light exposure increases disc phagocytosis at the apical end and increases lipid production at the basal end. Phagocytosis and degradation of ROS ensures functional integrity of the photoreceptor cells and other retinal cells. There are several factors, such as genetic or environmental factors, that can cause photoreceptor degeneration and eventual vision loss. Currently I am exploring how varying light conditions impact ROS renewal and rhodopsin incorporation into discs. Using a transgenic mouse that has a fluorescent marker attached to rhodopsin, I aim to understand the pattern of disc formation, rhodopsin biosynthesis in ROS, and the degenerative effect of light. This project can provide insight on how light exposure affects photoreceptors structure and function, which plays a key role in the visual process.
I’m working on deep reinforcement learning for training machine agents. We are attempting to borrow elements of human decision making and investigating its advantages when applied to reinforcement learning algorithms.
“My area of interest is Solar Photovoltaics and i am working on solar cell electrical modelling and its parameter degradation over time. It can be extended to study the effect of environment and other factors contributing Solar Panel performance degradation.”
Radha is creating an interface in Matlab to deal with loads of Epilepsy data from mices (which were on different diets(Fatty food reduces seizures) and then given seizures) , to remove artifacts , select seizure onset and stop times and save relevant data for analysis in minimal time and automated manner.She’ll be analyzing the same data later and derive relevant features and observations about seizures
Jared Landsman is an MS student in the Building Science program at UC Berkeley. He received his BS in Civil Engineering from Cornell University in 2014. Through the Center for Building Energy Research and Development (CBERD), Jared is currently conducting research on occupant comfort and the performance of passive design strategies in buildings in both the United States and India. This past summer, Jared spent 6 weeks working with the Centre for Advanced Research in Building Science & Energy (CARBSE) at CEPT University in India.
I am a final year master’s student in Biotechnology with specialisation in Disease Biology at Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology. My research interests are Antimicrobial resistance and Breast cancer.
2018 Khorana Scholar who worked at the University of Wisconsin Madison under Professor Jo Handelsman.
Shruthi studied genetic analysis of microbial community and invasion. In which I am working on developing a stable model community and will identify the genetic determinants of synergistic community assemblages using this model community.
2018 Khorana Scholar who worked with Nitish V. Thakor. “I am working on building a mixed reality training program for upper limb amputees and providing them a proprioceptive feedback of their arm location.”
I am currently pursuing MSc In Biotechnology from JNU. I have interests in exploring the cellular signaling networks in case of complex diseases using both computational and wet lab approaches.
I am working on self-healing polymers and hydrogels. My work involves fabricating hydrogel samples and testing their mechanical properties. The ultimate aim of my project is to come up with hydrogels with high healing efficiency and superior mechanical properties.
Somesh is studying the Development of Computational Model and Experimental Study on Quantification and Therapeutic Efficacy Study of varying density of Phosphlipid based Supramolecular Nanoparticles
“We are using a novel Separase inhibitor Sepin-1 developed by Dr. Pati’s lab to treat Neuroblastoma tumors. We will be injecting Sepin-1 into NB mouse model and check it’s anticancer activity. The last step would be to perform IND enabling studies.”
I am currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Biotechnology at Madurai Kamaraj University, India. I enjoy problem-solving, and the unparalleled pleasure of success after endless hard work endorses me to be involved in the research.
“I am a Master’s student in Cognitive Sciences at IIT Gandhinagar, Gujarat, with a B.Sc. in Cell & Molecular Biology from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. I am interested in Brain Sciences, particularly the molecular basis of neurodegeneration and related dementias. I was set to visit Prof. William Klein’s lab at Northwestern University this summer where I would have worked on the structure and mechanism of action of amyloid beta oligomers in Alzheimer’s disease (although, I am hoping to do that next summer!). Apart from reading about or discussing anything Neuroscience-related with whoever is willing, I really enjoy reading fiction, especially a good whodunit mystery.”
Baishali worked in membrane biophysics. She was working on ER (Endoplasmic Reticulum) lipid Membrane remodeling in presence of viral (Poliovirus) peptides by Clearance Assay, CD Spectroscopy and Electron Microscopy.
Satyaki was researching on a novel topology of DC-DC resonant converter. The proposed topology is supposed to act as a constant current source to the load in open loop operation, that is even if the load voltage changes the output current would remain constant. A typical application is automotive LED driver, where strings of LEDs may be connected to the load which require a constant current to turn them on, but the voltage varies as the number of LEDs change. His work was to analyse the topology analytically and verify the findings using simulation. I am also prototyping the converter in printed circuit board to carry out experiments using actual hardware. His work also involved finding out appropriate control strategies, to regulate the output current with variations in input voltage or output voltage and incorporate those to run the converter.
Purba Mukherjee is a masters student at IIT Mandi and a 2020 Khorana scholar. My interests lie in cancer biology and related therapeutics. I had been selected to work at Georgia State University and it involved research related to novel druggable targets in breast cancer
My research work is to “Predict mutation in kinesin-3 motor by quantifying the effect of translational velocity using the stochastic model”. Kinesin-3 are the class of motor proteins that transport information within the cell by moving on the microtubule. Kinesin-3 are superprocessive in nature that means that cover around a hundred steps before detaching from the microtubule and have high velocity. The reason behind high processivity and velocity is still unknown. So in order to understand how a small change in the binding energy of the motor to the microtubule results in a fast change in translational velocity. We use the different stochastic model to calculate the translational velocity of the motor on the microtubule by performing the analytical simulation. The model uses experimental data such as ATPase activity and Diffusion coefficient from the biochemical assays as an input parameter to calculate the translational velocity. The predicted velocities from the model are further correlated with the experimental average velocity to understand the behaviour of a particular input parameter of the motor.
Harshith currently pursuing my Bachelor of Science (Research) at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. I am interested in Neuroscience, particularly in circadian regulation as well as Cognitive Neuroscience. I would be working under Dr. Xinyu Zhao at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for my fellowship.
I find my passion in teaching and research, where every experience is an opportunity for learning and sharing knowledge. My interest lies in the field of Biology – Developmental Biology, Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Systems Biology. Through the Khorana program, I have been offered a chance to work in a Biophysics laboratory to work on a Dev Bio problem statement and explore the Mechanisms of transcriptional bursting that initiate the cell differentiation process.
