During my BSc I developed a greater interest in genetics and microbiology along with biotechnology. This drove me to pursue MS and PhD in molecular biology. My PhD training exposed me to the wonderful world of omics and bioinformatics. I learnt to appreciate the power of omics approches to answer some basic questions that the living systems put forward. Now, I strongly believe omics approcahes could be wisely used to decode the complex language of life along with the associated data analyses tools.

During my PhD at UC Davis, I used both Arabidopsis thaliana and Schizosaccharomyces pombe model systems to functionally characterize a functionally unknown protein initially identified in a screen designed to capture mutants with defects in the plant circadian rythms. We took genome-wide genetic, transcriptomic and proteomic approaches along with other basic physiological experiments in both model systems to show that X-chromosome associates protein 5 (Xap5) binds chromatin and repress cryptic transcripts including transposable elements and long terminal repeats.

Soon after my PhD, I joined Max Plank Institute for Plant Breeding Research as a MaxPlank Research Fellow. There, I explored conservation and diversification of innert immune system in Brassicaceae using comics approaches. We took transcriptomics, hormonomics, and biochemical approaches along with other basic physiology to answer the question. Comparative genomics analysis of available genome sequences of different Brassicacea species reveals interesting phylogenetic relationships among prominent defence-associated genes. Some are highly conserved at sequence level, some are conserved but sequences have changed considerably to include new motifs(?). Some paralogous partners of some genes of Arabidopsis are no longer there in some other species and in other cases new paralogs in some species due to whole genome duplications. These are all interesting changes at the sequence level. However, are these orthologs transcriptionally regulated upon pathogen challenge??? Our time-course RNAseq at different times after challenging with pathogens/PAMPS suggest: some modules are conserved and yet some are not at transcriptional level. The transcriptional landscapes during PTI is interestingly very different in different Brassicacea species tested.

Going back to roots! Use omics in S. Pome to answer interesting biological questions! Joined Jürg Bähler group at UCL as research associate. Yet another question to be answered with comics approaches! More than 80% of the genomes of many organisms are transcribed whereas only 2% comprise of protein coding transcripts. Many of these are long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs). Many lncRNAs are differentially expressed especially during ageing and cancers. What is their biological significance? We tried to answer some of these questions as stated in Research summary.