Dr. Palei is currently working as an Assistant Professor (Grade-I) at Department of Chemistry, IIT Kharagpur. His area of research involves understanding the roles of the Post-Translational Modifications (PTMs) of histones in development and disease. His lab utilizes various chemical biology tools e.g. genetic code expansion, directed evolution, bacterial display, ribosomal display, bioorthogonal reactions to achieve the goals. Before joining IIT Kharagpur, he was a Senior Scientist at a Biotech Start-up company Athebio AG based in Zürich, Switzerland, where he developed high affinity DARPin binders for therapeutic applications using directed evolution with Ribosomal display platform. Previously, he worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at TU Dortmund University, Germany and ETH Zürich, Switzerland funded by European Research Council (ERC) fellowship. During Postdoc he developed novel protein engineering and small molecule based tools to regulate functions of Epigenetic erasers (TETs), writers (DNMTs) and readers (MBDs) both in vitro and in vivo. He did his PhD in Chemical Biology at University of Münster with his work involving developing novel chemoenzymatic methods for making Semi-synthetic cyclic peptides and their selection using E. coli cell surface display. He has a MSc Chemistry degree from IIT Kanpur and Integrated B.Sc. B.Ed. (4 years) degree from RIE, Bhubaneswar (NCERT).
Professional Research Experience
Assistant Professor 04/2024 – present
Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, India
Senior Scientist 01/2023 – 10/2023
Athebio AG (Biotech Start-up Company), Zurich-Schlieren, Switzerland
Post-doctoral researcher 10/2021 – 12/2022
Department of Chemistry and Applied Bioscience (D-CHAB), ETH Zürich, Switzerland
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Kathrin Lang
Post-doctoral researcher 01/2018 – 05/2021
Chemistry and Chemical Biology (CCB), TU Dortmund, Germany
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Daniel Summerer
Bridging Post-doctoral researcher 09/2017 – 12/2017
Institute of Biochemistry, University of Muenster, Germany
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Henning. D. Mootz
Ph.D. in Chemical Biology 10/2012 – 08/2017
Institute of Biochemistry, University of Muenster, Germany
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Henning. D. Mootz.
MSc Dissertation 12/2011 – 04/2012
Department of Chemistry & Department of Bioscience and Bioengineering (BSBE), IIT Kanpur, India
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Sandeep Verma (Dept. of Chemistry), Co-supervisor: Prof. Dr. Ashwani Kumar Thakur
(Dept. of Biological Science and Bioengineering)
Summer Project (SURGE 2011) 05/2011 – 07/2011
Department of Bioscience and Bioengineering (BSBE), IIT Kanpur, India
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Ashwani Kumar Thakur
Education
Ph.D in Chemical Biology 10/2012 – 08/2017
University of Muenster, Germany
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Henning D. Mootz (magna cum laude)
M.Sc in Chemistry 07/2010 – 06/2012
IIT Kanpur, India
Integrated B.Sc B.Ed (4 year) 07/2006 – 06/2010
Regional Institute of Education (RIE) (Affiliated to NCERT, New Delhi) and Utkal University, Bhubaneswar
Awards and Achivements
· Successful job offers for Assistant Professor in Chemistry (Grade-I) from IISER Bhopal, IISER Thiruvananthapuram, IIT Kharagpur, IIT (ISM) Dhanbad, BITS Pilani, BITS Goa.
· Awarded Ramalingaswami Re-entry Fellowship 2023 worth 83 lakhs INR by DBT, India for 3 years or up to 5 years (1.37 crores INR) to establish own research lab.
· Selected (rank 1) as Assistant Professor Chemistry under Odisha Public Service Commission (OPSC) 2018 (declined)
· ERC funded post-doctoral fellowship (1/2018 - 5/2021) at TU Dortmund and at ETH Zürich (10/2021 - 12/2022)
· Awarded EMBL Advanced Training Centre Corporate Partnership Programme Fellowship to attend EMBO Chemical Biology 2016 conference in Heidelberg, Germany.
· Best poster award in Muenster Conference for Biomolecule Analysis-2014 from Springer Nature
· Awarded prestigious International Graduate School of Chemistry (GSC-MS), Muenster fellowship 2012-2014 from Ministry of Science and Education of the federal state of Northrhine Westphalia (NRW)
· Best Poster award in Summer Undergraduate Research Grant for Excellence (SURGE), 2011, IIT Kanpur.
· Awarded prestigious Summer Undergraduate Research Grant for Excellence (SURGE) Fellowship, 2011 IIT Kanpur.
· Qualified CSIR NET-2011 in Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) category with all India rank 10 conducted by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India.
· Qualified Graduate Aptitude Test for Engineering (GATE) 2012 conducted by IIT Delhi with all India rank 20 (percentile: 99.78)
· Placed within top 3% (AIR 104) in Joint Admission Test to M.Sc.(JAM-2010) conducted by Indian Institute of Technology (IITs)
· Placed rank 1 among all students selected for PhD by Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), CSIR, Hyderabad, 2012 (not opted)
· Offered prestigious Integrated Ph.D fellowship in Biological Science (2010), IISc Bangalore (declined)
· Awarded Best Student Award at P.S. College, Barsahi during 2004-2005 for being topper among all +2 Science, arts and commerce students.
· Awarded the prestigious National Rural Talent Search Scholarship (NRTS) by State Government of Odisha from 1999 to 2003
Peer Reviewer
J. Pep. Sc. (Willey), Pharmaceuticals (MDPI), Biomedicine (MDPI), Protein & Peptide Letters (Bentham), Frontiers in Genetics (Frontiers), Biology Methods & Protocols (Oxford)
International Affilations
American Peptide Society (2019-present), European Peptide Society (2019-present), The Epigenetics Society (2019-present), International Chemical Biology Society (2012-present), American Chemical Society (2020-present)
Invited talks
· Department of Chemistry, IISER Bhopal (Feb 2024)
· School of Biological Science, NISER Bhubaneswar (Feb 2024)
· School of Chemistry, IISER Thiruvananthapuram (Dec 2023)
· Department of Chemistry, IIT Kharagpur (Oct 2023)
· Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology (CCB), IIT (ISM) Dhanbad (Sept 2023)
· Department of Chemistry, Ashoka University, New Delhi (June 2023)
· Department of Chemical Science (DCS), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, (June 2023)
· School of Basic Sciences, IIT Bhubaneswar (Feb 2023)
· Department of Chemistry, BITS Pilani, Goa and Hyderabad (Sept-Dec 2022)
· International Webinar on ‘Light activated epigenetic regulation of human genome’, Udala College, Mayurbhanj, India, 22 Jan, 2021. Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jodWI0Mi1lE&ab_channel=UDALACOLLEGE%2CUDALA%2CMAYURBHANJ
· Webinar on ‘Epigenetic Regulation by Light’, Centurion University, Bhubaneswar, India, 30 June, 2020.
· Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, TU Dortmund, Germany, 21 April 2017, Department of Chemistry, TU Munich, Feb 2023; Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, 3 March 2023.
· Brown Bag lunch- New Horizons in Experimental Medicine. (A series of talks organized by Cells in Motion Cluster of Excellence, Muenster) Title: “New ways to make cyclic peptides for the development of inhibitors”, University Hospital Muenster, Germany, 9 June 2016.
· Biochemistry Colloquium- Muenster. “Synthesis of semisynthetic macrocycles using split inteins”, Institute of Biochemistry, Muenster, Feb 2015.
· Graduate School of Chemistry Workshop, Muenster, April 2013.
· International Max Plank Research School (IMPRS)-UFAST, Hamburg, Germany, May 2012.