Group Members
Principal Investigator
Kiran Kondabagil, PhD
Professor
Dr. Kondabagil joined IIT Bombay in 2011. His post-doctoral work at The Catholic University of America and Purdue University lead to an understanding of the atomic details of viral genome packaging machinery and genome packaging mechanism. He holds M.Sc and Ph.D. (work done at CSIR-CFTRI, Mysore) degrees in Biochemistry from the University of Mysore, Mysore, India.
Graduate Students
Uma Maheswari
Uma is interested in understanding how large viruses stuff their capsid with genome. She has a B.Tech. in Biotechnology from Shri Andal Alagar college of Engineering.
Deepti Sharma
Deepti is a CSIR-SRF working on understanding genome compaction in giant viruses. She has M.Sc. in Biotechnology from Panjab University, Chandigarh.
Harshali Chaudhari
Harshali is a DST-INSPIRE fellow trying to make sense of capsid and genome variations in viruses. She holds M.Sc. degree in Bioinformatics from Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune and B.Sc. in Biotechnology from the Fergusson College, Pune.
Vibha Kumari
Vibha is an IITB-Monash academy fellow working on identification of host factors required for assembly and budding of influenza virus. She holds M.Sc. degree in Biotechnology from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.
Praveen Kant
Praveen is a GATE-SRF studying microbial diversity and their interactions in different environments. He is an M.Tech. in Bioinformatics from the University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad.
Email: connectpraveenkant@gmail.com
Santhosh
Santhosh, a UGC-SRF, is keen to delineate DNA packaging mechanism of bacteriophage N4. He studies several proteins to understand their function and coordination with other components of the packaging machinery. He completed M.Sc from Bangalore University, Bangalore.
Email: msk.santhosh18@gmail.com
Tanvi Aggarwal
Tanvi is a GATE-SRF with keen interest on understanding the mechanism of genome packaging mediated by FtsK-ATPase in membrane-containing phage and a large eukaryotic virus. She is a B.Tech in Biotechnology from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi.
Monica Upadhyay
Monica is an IIT Bombay-Monash academy fellow trying to understand how giant viruses manage to package loads of proteins (by virus standards!) selectively. She has completed her Masters in Biotechnology from Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune and B.Sc. Zoology (H) from University of Delhi, Delhi.
Ruqaiyah Khan
Ruqaiyah is a GATE-JRF. She is currently studying phage derived lysins. She has completed B.Sc. in Microbiology and MSc. in Biosciences from Jamia Millia Islamia University, Delhi.
Soumyadeep Mandal
Soumyadeep is trying to understand the DNA repair mechanisms in viruses. He did his masters from Jawahar Lal Nehru University, Delhi.
Shivam Kashyap
Shivam is interested in understanding the genome segregation and packaging machinery of NCLDVs. He has done his B.Sc. in Medical Biotechnology and M.Sc. in Biosciences.
Pooja Yadav
Pooja is M.Sc.-PhD dual degree student at IIT Bombay. She is currently working on coevolution between bacteriophage -host and gaining insights to combat bacterial phage resistance to increase the efficacy of phage therapy. She has completed her B.Sc Zoology Hons from Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi.
Email: yadav.pooja2661@gmail.com
Ishika Gupta
Ishika is a M.Tech - Ph.D dual degree student. She is trying to elucidate the functions of proteins that are packaged inside the capsids of PhiKZ - like jumbo phages. She has completed her B.Tech from Bengal Institute of Technology, Techno India, Kolkata.
Email ID - guptaishika931@gmail.com
Alumni
Dr. Anirvan Chatterjee
Dr. Anirvan Chatterjee, Co-founder and CEO of HaystackAnalytics Pvt. Ltd. has built on his expertise in microbial genomics gained through premier institutes such as IIT, Oxford University and Denmark Technical University with this startup. HaystackAnalytics has developed platform that enables labs to undertake genomic analysis of infectious diseases and tackling drug resistance.
Dr. Kirti Megha
Dr. Megha was awarded Ph.D. in PGIMER, Chandigarh in the year 2018. She was a Research Fellow in the Virology Discovery Unit at CSIR- Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh prior to moving to Mumbai as a post-doctoral fellow. She has worked on Isolation of giant viruses and SARS-CoV 2 from the Environment.
Dr. Shipra Sharma
Dr. Shipra Sharma obtained a Ph.D. degree in 2015 in Biotechnology from ICGEB, New Delhi, where she worked in the Virology Group with Prof Sunil K Lal. She briefly worked in NIRRH, Mumbai as DST Young Scientist l. At IIT Bombay, Shipra was a DST young Scientist and she worked on Influenza A virus host cross-talk.
Dr. Supriya Patil
Supriya completed her Ph.D. in 2019. Her research at IIT-B focused on understanding the mechanism of DNA replication initiation in mimivirus. She is currently working as Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Institute Seattle, Washington.
Dr. Jigme Wangchuk
Jigme graduated in 2019. His work led to the identification of interaction between small and large terminase proteins in bacteriophage N4. Currently, he is working as a research associate in vaccine and infectious disease research centre, THSTI, Faridabad. His current work deals with understanding the role of zinc homeostasis in RNA virus life-cycle.
Dr. Avi Shukla
Avi completed her Ph.D. in 2019. Her work revolved around characterization of mimivirus packasome complex. She also identified the relationship between RDCP genes and genome size in amoebal giant viruses. She is a post doctorate researcher at Laboratoire Information Génomique et Structurale (CNRS), Marseille, France.
Dr. Amrutraj Zade
Amrutraj is currently working as a genome analyst at HayStack Analytics Pvt. Ltd. Before graduating in 2019, his multi-disciplinary research work at IIT-B led to identification of the role of mimiviral Rab GTPase protein in the acquisition of inner membrane during virion assembly.
Dr. Tushar Ranjan
He is working as an Assistant Professor-cum-Scientist (PG) at the Department of Molecular Biology & Genetic Engineering, Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour, Bhagalpur. His research work is oriented towards the molecular virology with a special emphasis on elucidating the mechanism of replication and genome encapsidation in plant viruses.
Dr. Ankita Gupta
She is working as a research associate in Virology lab at THSTI, Faridabad. Her project is to understand the mechanism of Hepatitis E virus replication inhibition by zinc salts. Before joining THSTI, she was working with Excelra Knowledge Solutions Pvt. Ltd, Hyderabad as a senior research analyst.
Dr. Venkata Chelikani
Dr. Chelikani was a post-doctoral fellow at the molecular virology lab. He worked towards understanding the genome packaging mechanisms in viruses. He is currently working as an assistant lecturer at the Linocoln University, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Dr. Deepak Singh
Deepak was working towards understanding the mechanism of phage lysis. He obtained his PhD degree from Shiv Nadar University, Delhi.
Dr. Shailesh Lad
Shailesh graduated in 2022. He was a GATE-SRF and aims to decipher the DNA repair mechanisms operative in large DNA viruses. He holds M.Sc. and B. Sc. in Microbiology from The M.S. University of Baroda and Wilson College, University of Mumbai, respectively.
Dr. Miryala Sravan Kumar
He is working as research associate in the field of Network Medicine in Center of Complex Network Research, Northeastern University, Boston, USA. In our lab, he was working in understanding the structural and functional aspects of viral capsid proteins and ORFan genes in Giant viruses using genomics and systems biology approaches.
Dr. Nisha Goyal
Nisha graduated in 2023. She studied the cytoskeleton modification of acanthamoeba during infection of Mimi and Marseille virus. Her research led the findings of tubulin cleavage and actin depolymerization during Mimivirus infection.