Principal Investigator
Dibyendu Kumar Das, PhD
Assistant Professor
Wellcome Trust-DBT Intermediate Fellow
Department of Biological Sciences and Bioengineering
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.
Email: dkdas@iitk.ac.in
Postdoc Experience: Vanderbilt University, USA (2013-16), Tufts University School of Medicine, USA (2017-18).
PhD : IACS Kolkata, India
M.Sc : IIT Roorkee, India
Dr. Dibyendu Kumar Das received his Ph.D in physical chemistry under the supervision of Prof. Kankan Bhattacharyya from Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), Kolkata in 2012. As an experimentalist, he developed interest in biology while studying ultrafast processes in nanosized-confined biological system and diffusion, folding dynamics of biomacromolecules.
Dr. Das made “transition” to biophysics as a postdoctoral fellow to work with Prof. Matthew Lang at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA in 2013, and worked on understanding the mechanical basis of T cell receptor triggering for T cell activation, pre-T cell receptor mechanosensation of self peptide-MHC recognition, using high-resolution single molecule optical trapping. In 2017, Dr. Das moved to Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, USA, where he studied virology with Prof. James Munro, using single molecule imaging techniques. At Tufts University, Dr. Das studied entry mechanism of enveloped viruses such as Influenza and Ebola virus.
Key Publications
1. Das DK*, Bulow U, Diehl WE , Durham N, Senjobe F, Chandran K, Luban J, Munro JB*. Conformational changes in the Ebola virus membrane fusion machine induced by pH, Ca2+, and receptor binding. 2020. Plos Biology. 18, 1-20. pubmed
2. Das DK*, Govindan R, Nikic-Spiegel I, Krammer F, Lemke EA, Munro JB*. Direct visualization of the conformational dynamics of single influenza hemagglutinin trimers. 2018. Cell 174, 926-937. pubmed
3. Das DK, Mallis RJ, Duke-Cohan JS, Hussey RE, Tetteh PW, Hilton M, Wagner G, Lang MJ, Reinherz EL. Pre-T Cell Receptors (Pre-TCRs) Leverage Vβ Complementarity Determining Regions (CDRs) and Hydrophobic Patch in Mechanosensing Thymic Self-ligands. 2016. Journal of Biological Chemistry. 291, 25292-25305. pubmed
4. Das DK, Feng Y, Mallis RJ, Li X, Keskin DB, Hussey RE, Brady SK, Wang JH, Wagner G, Reinherz EL, Lang MJ. Force-dependent transition in the T-cell receptor β-subunit allosterically regulates peptide discrimination and pMHC bond lifetime. 2015. PNAS. 112, 1517-1522. pubmed
Awards/Honours
Wellcome-Trust/DBT Intermediate Fellowship-2020
Merck Young Scientist Runner-up Award-2019
Ramalingaswami Re-entry Fellowship-2019
George R. Chambers Postdoc Fellowship (2013-15)
CSIR-Senior Research fellow (2009-12)
CSIR-Junior Research Fellow (2007-08)