Haritha Hari (PhD Student)

“I can’t find my quote at the moment.”

Haritha comes from a rural village in Kollam. She completed her Bachelor’s in Microbiology from Indira Gandhi College of Arts and Science, Ernakulam and her master’s from CMS College of Science and Commerce, Coimbatore, in 2021. She cleared CSIR- NET JRF in September 2022 and worked as a Project Associate at the National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, under the guidance of Dr C. Ravindran in marine biotechnology.
Haritha joined the NSMB lab in August 2023. Her work here focuses on the structural and functional study of Mycobacterial transcriptional repair factors. In her PhD, Haritha aims to become proficient in protein crystallography and several biochemical and biophysical experiments.
Apart from the lab, her interests include watching movies and binge-watching series.

Amrutha Krishnakumar (PhD Student)

 

Amrutha comes from the coastal town of Ponnani, Kerala. She did her schooling in her hometown followed by Integrated MSc in Life Sciences from the Central University of Tamil Nadu and passed out in 2022, with a Gold medal. She joined NSMB lab as PhD student in January of 2023.  Her work here is focused on the structural and functional study of Mycobacterial Gre factors.

Amrutha is a trained Bharathanatyam dancer and avidly takes part in dance events. She also likes to read books and watch movies.

Yash Misra (PhD Student)

“People ask me about my New Year’s resolution, I say 1.8 Å”

Yash did his Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh. Later he joined for MSc in Biochemistry at University of Hyderabad, Telangana.

Yash joined as a Graduate student at NSMB Lab in January 2022. Here he works on Transcription regulators of Mycobacteria. By the end of his doctorate, he aims to gain proficiency in X-ray Crystallography and CryoEM.

When not doing science, you’ll find him cracking jokes.

Anjitha K (PhD Student)

Anjitha completed her Bachelor’s degree from Government college Kasaragod, Kerala. She did her MSc. in Zoology from Government Brennen College Kannur, Kerala by securing first rank from Kannur University. She is currently pursuing her doctoral work on proteins involved in DNA damage repair pathway of human pathogens. During her PhD period, she aims to gain extensive knowledge in structural biology techniques including molecular biology, protein expression, purification, single particle cryoEM, protein crystallography and many other biophysical and biochemical techniques. Anjitha says : She is interested in dancing, crafts and creations and watching movies.

 Dr. Sandrea Maureen Francis (Postdoctoral Fellow)

Sandrea is a pharmacy graduate and with a M.S. Pharmacology in Pharmacoinformatics from the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), Mohali.  She obtained a Ph.D degree in Structural biology from the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (UAM).  Her PhD thesis work on Structure based characterization of the developmentally regulated GTPase in complex with the DRG family regulatory protein using X ray crystallography was carried out under the guidance of Dr. Jeronimo Bravo Sicilia at the Signal transduction unit, Instituto de Biomedicina de Valencia (IBV-CSIC).  She received the EMBO short term fellowship to pursue her doctoral research work at IGBMC, Strasbourg. After a break in her research career, she joined NSMB lab as a post-doctoral fellow on a KSCSTE Back To Lab Postdoctoral Fellowship and  she is currently working on the mycobacterial RNA polymerase and its secondary channel binding proteins involved in the transcription process. She enjoys painting, artwork, embroidery, and love to travel.

Former PhD Students

Dr. Abyson Joseph

Abyson completed bachelor’s degree in Botany and Chemistry from C.S.J.M.U Kanpur. He obtained his Master’s degree in Biotechnology from VIT University in 2010. His Master’s thesis focused on structure determination of phospholipase A2 from cobra venom in complex with anisic acid using X-ray crystallography under the guidance of Prof. TP Singh and Prof. Punit Kaur AIIMS. He is interested in structural biochemistry of proteins. He joined Natesh’s lab in 2011. His current work is focused on the structural and functional characterisation of secondary channel binding proteins of M.tuberculosis and M.smegmatis RNA polymerase. He has a passion for teaching, loves reading non-fiction, and enjoys playing cricket.

Currently working as a Research Scientist at Premas Biotech industry, New Delhi, India.

Dr. Sivasankar Putta 

Sivasankar Putta earned his B.Sc. in Biochemistry from Silver Jubilee Government College, A.P. and M.Sc. degree in Biotechnology at Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai.  While pursuing my M.Sc. degree, He did project on membrane proteins under the able guidance of Dr. S. Krishnaswamy. Currently, he is pursuing  Ph.D. in Natesh Structural Molecular Biology (NSMB) lab, where he aims to understand the mechanism of transcription regulators in prokaryotes.  He has extensive training in multidisciplinary approaches including molecular biology, biochemistry, bio-physical and biochemical characterisation and X-ray crystallography.  He also has experience in preparing -ve stain specimen for single particle EM studies.  He has attended the 1st cryoEM practical course conducted by his current supervisor in the year 2016, and has gained insight into single particle cryoEM image processing through hands-on sessions in the course.    He is ambitious to expand his horizon to cryoEM . (Submitted thesis in July 2018)

Is working as a postdoctoral fellow in Professor Seth Rubin’s lab at University of California, Santa Cruz, USA.

Dr. Johnson  Wahengbam Luwang 

I completed my Bachelor degree in Agriculture from Assam Agricultural University. I was the recipient of ICAR’s National Talent Scholarship (2005-09). After my graduation, I moved to University of Agricultural Science, Dharwad for my Master degree in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology with DBT, Govt. of India fellowship (2009-11). My MSc thesis was on Molecular Characterization of cry genes from the native Bacillus thuringiensis isolates, jointly supervised by Prof. P.U. Krishnaraj and Dr. Narayan Moger of UAS Dharwad. During my Master’s programme, I developed keen interest into the field of Structural Biology and Biophysics for which, I moved to IISER Thiruvananthapuram for my PhD in 2012 to work under the versatile guidance of Dr. Natesh. Here I am working on mechanism underlying structural and functional destabilization of human p53 and the fate of p53 protein upon oligomerization.  (Submitted thesis in Nov 2018).

He is working as a faculty at College of Biotechnology, FEEDS, Manipur, India.

Dr. Eswar Reddy Maddi

I am Eswar Reddy Maddi, completed bachelor’s degree from Maharajah College, Vizianagaram, Andhra University (India). Pursued Master’s in Animal Biotechnology specialization from the University of Hyderabad (India) during which I gained much attention to the central dogma concepts of transcription and translation. Did a year Master’s Degree dissertation on “Determination of organophosphate hydrolase (OPH) topology in the inner membrane of Brevundimonas diminuta,” under the supervision of Prof. Dayananda Siddavattam, Department of Animal Sciences, University of Hyderabad, employing a range of molecular biology techniques and biochemical techniques. With interest in developing further expertise in structural biology mainly protein crystallography, I went on to do doctoral studies in Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Thiruvananthapuram under the supervision of Dr. Ramanathan Natesh. My Ph.D. work mainly focuses on the structural and biophysical characterization of NHEJ repair proteins. During my Ph.D. work, I have gained extensive experience in various advanced biochemical techniques (FPLC, SPR, ITC, CD, DLS & SEC-MALS) and crystallography techniques and structure solution methods. Further paved the path towards advanced structural biology techniques to gain better knowledge and utility for the betterment of humanity.

I believe in my saying “Jack of all trades and aspiring some” so always I try to adopt every possible compatible act into my bucket list. In my spare time, I enjoy to play badminton and cricket and has a keen interest in both the teaching and adopting creative techniques. Calligraphy and drawing are one of the very leisure companions for me.

Currently working as a Research Scientist at Premas Biotech industry, New Delhi, India.

 Dr. Monica P

Monica completed her degree in Physics from Women’s Christian College, Chennai. She did her M.Sc in Biophysics from University of Madras. Her dissertation was on Structure of d(CCCCGGTACCGGGG) 2 at 1.65 Å resolution under the guidance of Prof. N. Gautham.  This project
made her appreciate the elegance of determining the structure of DNA through X ray crystallography. Her doctoral work on proteins involved transcription and DNA repair pathway of human pathogens. During her PhD tenure, she gained extensive experience in techniques such as cloning, protein expression, purification, crystallisation, in-house data collection, structure determination,  biochemical assays and biophysical characterisation of proteinsusing ITC, spectrophotometer etc.