Debasish Roy, PhD 

Assistant Professor, Center for Neuroscience, IISc

Contact: droy@iisc.ac.in, Google Scholar

Debasish started his scientific journey in the lab of renowned protein crystallographer Dr. Tej Pal Singh (AIIMS, New Delhi) as a INSA summer fellow during his master's studies at VIT, Vellore. He continued his love for structural biochemistry in Dr. Mihaly Kovacs lab, Eotvos Lorand University, Hungary Budapest where he was trained in enzyme kinetics for his Master's thesis. During this time, he became inspired to understand the biochemical mechanisms that regulate fat breakdown by lipolysis. As a Fulbright Scholar he pursued his PhD in Biochemistry in the lab of Dr. Kavitha Thirumurugan at VIT, Vellore and Dr. Maria Hatzoglou at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, USA. Later, as a postdoctoral scholar in the lab of Dr. Konstantin Kandror at Boston University he studied the transcriptional regulation of leptin. While conducting circadian experiments on leptin transcription,  he became drawn to the field of neuroscience, to identify the role of neurons in adipose tissue, This led his transition to the field of spinal cord injury, in the lab of Dr. Andrea Tedeschi at The Ohio State University. In his postdoctoral work, he identified that after spinal cord injury pain sensing neurons (nociceptors) innervating adipose tissue, drives fat breakdown via lipolysis by the action of a2d1 subunit of voltage gated calcium channel expressed on these neurons.