Somenath Bakshi

Current position (September 2014 -):

Postdoctoral fellow, Johan Paulsson's Lab

Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School

Previous position (August 2013 - August 2014):

Postdoctoral fellow, Jim Weisshaar's Lab

Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin Madison

Education:

Ph.D. in Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison 2013

Advisor: Professor James C. Weisshaar

M.Sc in Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, 2008

Advisor: Professor Sandeep Verma

B.Sc in Chemistry, Calcutta University, 2006

Teaching Experience:

• Teaching Assistant, Chemistry 103, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Fall 2008 and Spring 2009
• Teaching Assistant, Chemistry 116, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Spring 2010

Awards and Honors:

• 2013 K.V. Reddy Award in Physical Chemistry for "outstanding achievement as a graduate student" in the Department of Chemistry at University of Wisconsin-Madison
• "Best Master's Project Award" in Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, 2008.
• Award for "Academic Excellence Among Masters Student of Chemistry," class of 2008
• Swami Tejasananda Award for "Most Meritorious Student" for obtaining highest marks in B. Sc among all divisions in class of 2006 in Ramkrishna Mission Vidyamandira.
• Manmath Nath Medal for "Highest Marks in Chemistry" in the class of 2006 in Ramkrishna Mission Vidyamandira.
• Selected as Visiting Student Reseach Fellow (VSRP) at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India, 2007.
• Ranked 5 in All India Graduate Aptitude Test (GATE) 2008.
• Ranked 3rd based on overall aggregate in the B. Sc. examination in chemistry among 171 colleges under University of Calcutta, India, 2006.
• Secured All India rank of 3 in the Joint Admission test to enter the M.Sc. program at Indian Institute of Technology (JAM), 2006.

Invited talks and Oral presentations at Conferences:

• "How does transcription and translation modulate nucleoid morphology?", NIH Lambda Lunch Meetings, Bethesda, MD, 2014
• "Studying RNA Polymerase Partitioning in Escherichia coli Cells Using Single Molecule Imaging", Quantitative Bioimaging: Focus on Single Molecule Microscopy , Albuquerque, NM, 2013
• "Spatial biology of transcription and translation in live E. coli using super-resolution microscopy", NIH Lambda Lunch Meetings, Bethesda, MD, 2013
• "Superresolution Imaging of Ribosomes and RNA Polymerase in Live Escherichia coli Cells", Midwest Single Molecule Workshop, Ann Arbor, MI, 2012
• "Superresolution Imaging of Ribosomes in Live Escherichia coli Cells," Bacteria and Phages meeting, Madison, WI, 2011

Publications:

• First-author publications:

• Other publications:

1. Okumus B, Landgraf D, Lai GC, Bakshi S, Arias-Castro JC, Yildiz S, Huh D, Fernandez-Lopez R, Peterson CN, Toprak E, Karoui ME, Paulsson J.

Mechanical slowing-down of cytoplasmic diffusion allows in vivo counting of proteins in individual cells.

Nature communications; 7:12130 (2016).

2. Rangarajan N, Bakshi S, Weisshaar JC.

Localized Permeabilization of E. coli Membranes by the Antimicrobial Peptide Cecropin A,

Biochemistry; 52 (38):6584-6594 (2013).

3. Eun Y-J, Kiekebusch D, Zhou M, Schlimpert S, Trivedi R, Bakshi S, Wahlig T, Zhong Z, Thanbichler M, Weibel D.

Divin: A Small Molecule Inhibitor of Bacterial Divisome Assemblys

J. Am. Chem. Soc.; 135, 9768-9776 (2013).

Science Outreach:

• Mentored Lyanne Gomez, an undergraduate student from University of Puerto Rico, Ro Piedras, for REU summer project
• Lead annual microscopy activities for the " Microscopy of Life" class sponsored by UW Laboratory for Optical and Computational Instrumentation (LOCI)
• Organized microscopy activities for the for the CHOPS (Chemistry Opportunities) program for underrepresented minority students who are interested in a career in chemistry.

Lab Skills:

• Experimental design, data acquisition and data analysis for sub-diffraction-limit microscopy techniques (PALM, Single Particle Tracking).
• Experimental design, data acquisition and data analysis for microfluidics based high-throughput time-lapse imaging.
• Experimental design, data acquisition and data analysis for FRAP and photoactivated pulse-chase experiments.
• Programming user interface (MATLAB) for data analysis of single molecule tracking and superresolution imaging (PALM) experiments
• Monte Carlo simulations of reaction-diffusion systems to model the experimental data
• Construction and use of microfluidic devices for time-lapse imaging of bacteria
• Basic molecular biology techniques