Post Doctoral Fellows

Mantelingu K 

Associate Professor  

DOS in Chemistry  

Manasagangotri, Mysore-06 

Tenure (from 2004 to 2007) in TDL, as Postdoctoral Fellow 

 Research work done in TDL:  

Kempegowda Mantelingu has contributed to the synthesis of trifluoromethyl phenyl benzamides and their effect on histone acetyltransferase (HAT) activity of p300, as well as the Raman spectroscopic analysis of histone-modifying enzymes and their modulators. 

K. Balasubramaniam
Associate Professor, Director,
Genomics Lab, Tuskegee University
Tenure (from Nov 2001 to August 2003) in TDL, as Postdoctoral Fellow

Research work done in TDL: 

My work primarily focused on developing a small molecule inhibitor for histone acetyltransferases (HATs), which play a crucial role in gene expression. Before our research at TDL, only peptide-based bisubstrate inhibitors of HATs had been documented in the literature. We were the first to discover small molecule inhibitors for HATs. In addition to inhibitors, we also serendipitously invented a small molecule activator, CTPB, well before the activation loop in EP300 (KAT3B) was identified.

Ravi Kodihalli
Associate Director/Senior Principal Scientist
Pfizer, Cambridge, USA 

Tenure in TDL: Oct 2006 to Dec 2009, as Research Associate (8 months) and Postdoctoral Fellow 

Research work done in TDL: 

Extracted, identified, and characterized natural products from medicinal plants and assessed their activity against HAT enzymes in collaboration with molecular biologists. Derivatized natural products to enhance their potency and reduce their toxicity. In addition, synthesized novel antimalarial chemotypes. 

Pushpak Mizar 

Tenure (from 2009 to 2010) in TDL, as Postdoctoral Fellow

Research work done in TDL:  

He discovered PTK1 and covalently conjugated CSP with TTK21 which was instrumental to establish the activator role in Alzheimer’s disease and spinal cord injury.   

Rahul Modak 

Associate Professor,  School of Biotechnology, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India  

Tenure (from June 2009 to January 2013) in TDL, as Postdoctoral Fellow 

 Research work done in TDL: 

My primary project was to understand epigenetic regulation of host gene expression during bacterial infection using mastitis model. We collaborated with Dr. Bibek Shome’s group in ICAR-NIVEDI, Bengaluru to establish world’s 1st mouse model for bovine mastitis.   

My 2nd project led to Discovery of 1st specific cell permeable inhibitor of PCAF/GCN5 called embelin.

Jeelan Basha N 

Professor (Assistant)  

Indian Academy Group of Institutions 

Tenure (from December 2009 to July 2013) in TDL, as Research Associate  

Research work done in TDL: 

His work involved discovery of embelin as the first natural PCAF inhibitor. 

Charitha Muraleedharan 

Bristol Myers Squibb 

Tenure (from April 2010 to April 2011) in TDL, as Post Doctoral Fellow   

Research work done in TDL: 

Project: Role of multifunctional human histone chaperone NPM1 in transcription and stress associated chromatin dynamics: Relevance in cancer manifestation I analysed the protein and RNA levels of histone chaperone NPM1 by western blotting and RT-PCR upon induction of p53 by genotoxic insult in various cell lines. I validated the binding of p53 protein to NPM1 promoter by gel-shift assay and ChIP assays 

Somnath Mandal 

Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Pundibari, Coochbehar, Pin-736165 

Tenure (from Aug 2012 to May 2014) in TDL, as Postdoctoral Fellow  

Research work done in TDL: 

I started working on Lysine acetyl transferase enzyme assays and screening of different natural and semi synthetic inhibitors of KAT synthesized in our lab. One inhibitor PTK-1 was very promising and we did lot of inhibition and expression studies with it. Later on I started working on my independent project on evolution of Lysine acetyl transferase enzyme and kinetic comparison between fungal acetyl transferase Rtt109, zebrafish KAT and p300, PCAF and Tip60 etc. The project was funded by DBT with Prof. Kundu as my mentor.  

Sadhan Das 

IISER, Mohali 

Tenure (from January 2013 to August 2013) at TDL, MBGU, JNCASR as Postdoctoral Fellow 

Research work done in TDL: 

I contributed to studies showing the mechanism of upregulation of human histone chaperone NPM1 in oral cancer (Senapati et al., 2018) as well as its genome-wide occupancy and gene targets (Senapati et al., 2021). I also contributed to studies showing red fluorescent hemicyanine- based Thiazole Coumarin (TC) probe specifically recognized the AT-base pair of dsDNA (Narayanaswamy et al., 2014) as well as nanoparticles with different shapes conjugated to small-molecule epigenetic enzyme activator can trigger changes in gene expression in brain cells (Chaturbedy et al., 2015).

Shrinka Sen
Project Scientist I, CDFD, Hyderabad
Tenure: December 2016- March 2019 in TDL, as PDF (DST-N-PDF)

Research work done in TDL:

Proposed and implemented research focused on understanding the specific role of epigenetic regulation towards Breast Cancer (got grant). Collaborated with clinicians and conducted research to identify genomic and transcriptomic alterations in Oral Cancer. In a mutational screening for p53 gene in oral cancer patient samples, we have identified, a new gain-of-function mutation showing increased oncogenic potential.

Manoj Kumar

Tenure in TDL: 2013- 2016 as Postdoctoral Fellow

Research work done in TDL:

During his stay in TDL, he was involved in studying oral and breast cancer and had an eminent role in standardizing tissue array methods in the lab.  

Sourav Chatterjee

Assistant Professor

Department of Chemistry

Ashoka University

Sonipat, India

Tenure in TDL: May 2017 - Oct 2018 as Postdoctoral Fellow

Research work done in TDL:

During my stay in TDL, I was engaged in developing small molecule modulators targeting lysine methyltransferase G9a and probing p300 catalyzed histone butyrylation in adipogenesis 

Prashant Kumar

Tenure (from 1999 to 2002) in TDL, as Research Associate

Research work done in TDL:

Prashant Kumar worked as the 1st postdoctoral fellow of the lab. His major contribution to the lab was how general transcriptional coactivator PC4 activated p53 function. Also, on how PC4 induces chromatin condensation 

Radhika Varier

Tenure (from 2002 to 2004) in TDL, as Research Associate

Research work done in TDL:

She worked on small molecule modulators of KATs and coauthored several key publications of the TDL. She wrote two important revisions as the first author.