We are new group focusing on different aspects of infectious intracellular protozoan pathogens using Leishmania, Toxoplasma and Plasmodium as model system. My research has always focused on different immunological and cellular aspects of parasite biology, that enables these intracellular pathogens to survive within the hostile host enviornment. My scholarship has rendered around theories and methods of protozoan parasitic diseases with applications to clinical importance. We have contributed significantly in the field of drug resistance leishmaniasis one of the major emerging problem for India with new cases reported every year. For a better understanding of protozoan mediated infectious disease I started working on Plasmodium and Toxoplasma causative agents of Malaria & Toxoplasmosis as an EMBO-Post-doctoral fellow. My post-doctoral scholarship primarily articulate in successfully characterized key factors involved in establishing successful infection and dissemination of apicomplexan parasites into or out of the host. During this peroid 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 want to explore the possibility to establish a potent CRISPR-Cas9 based genome editing techniques in protozoan biology, which in turn could be implemented in 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 absence of vaccine, and help in designing of novel drug targets against these pathogens which currently is affecting a huge part of population each year.
