R&D Assistants/ JRFs

Febitha KK

Tenure (from 2002 to 2003) in TDL, as Research and Development Assistant

Research work done in TDL:
She majorly worked with Swaminathan. She worked on p300 mediated acetylation of NPM1.

Hari Kishore

Tenure (from 2004 to 2010) in TDL, as Research and Development Assistant

Research work done in TDL:

He joined as a project assistant and worked on many areas, mainly on Aurora Kinase modulators. After receiving CSIR SRF, he got registered PhD at the University of Mysore under Prof. K S Rangappa. He got PhD in Aurora Kinase modulators from the University of Mysore. He found that anacardic acid is an activator of Aurora Kinase. Besides, he was instrumental to discover that PC4 is a p53 responsive gene.

B. A. Ashok Reddy

Co-Founder and Director at IVF Precisions Private Limited,

Bengaluru based company in IVF secvtor

Tenure (from August 2004 to July 2007) in TDL, as Research Assistant 

Research work done in TDL:

At TDL, I worked in Histone Acetyl Transferase inhibitors (HATi) project, specifically on p300/CBP inhibitors to probe its role in transcription regulation and diseases. I was part of the team reported LTK-14, the first known nontoxic, cell permeable and highly specific inhibitor of p300/CBP, which inhibited HIV replication in T Cells. 

Snehajyoti Chatterjee 
Assistant Professor of Neuroscience and Pharmacology
University of Lowa
Tenure (from 2008 to 2012) in TDL, as Project assistant

Research work done in TDL: He has contributed to research on topics such as histone acetylation, transcriptional coactivation, and neuronal activation. He worked on many areas: small molecule modulators of epigenetic enzymes, p53- PC4 interaction and NPM1. He played an important role in investigating how garcinol was found to modulate multiple proinflammatory signaling cascades leading to the suppression of growth and survival of Head and Neck Carcinoma cells. After nearly 4 years of project assistance, he joined as CEFIPRA Ph.D. student in collaboration with Anne Laurette. And worked on the development of CSP- conjugated TTK21 for the activation of p300 mediated acetylation to enhance neurogenesis.

Altaf Bhat
Assistant Professor
Centre for Interdisciplinary Research, University of Kashmir
Tenure: March,2003 to May 2005 as JRF

Research work done in TDL:

In T&D lab, I was involved in finding small molecule modulators of histone acetyltransferases from natural sources and understanding their mechanism of modulating chromatin structure. As a team we discovered first non-toxic cell permeable histone acetyltransferase inhibitors Garcinol and Curcumin of histone acetyltransferases p300/CBP.

B M Vedamurthy
Scientific Manager (New product development laboratory) in a Nutraceutical company, Bengaluru
Tenure from 2006 May to 2008 Oct in TDL, as Research associate

Research work done in TDL:
I worked on the extraction and purification of naturally occurring bioactive molecules and the semi-synthesis of their derivatives. Specifically, I focuses on PCAF, P300, and developing Aurora kinase-targeted inhibitors and activators. Additionally, I will be conducting a complete characterization study of these compounds.

Ramachandran.B.
Research engineer, Institute of Structural Biology, Grenoble, France.
Tenure: from April 2010 to July 2012 in TDL, as a Research & Development assistant

Research work done in TDL:As an R&D assistant under the supervision of Prof. Tapas K. Kundu and Dr. D. Karthigeyan, I contributed to identifying putative substrates for Aurora kinases A and B (AurkA and AurkB) through in silico predictions, validating some of these substrates through biochemical and cellular experiments. We also identified Positive Coactivator 4 (PC4) as a putative substrate of Aurora kinases, demonstrating that it enhances the activity of both AurkA and AurkB and that its phosphorylation is crucial for accurate chromosome segregation during mitosis and cytokinesis.

Ila Joshi
Ph.D. Student, Laboratory of Synaptogenesis, Łukasiewicz Research Network – PORT Polish Center for Technology Development, Stabłowicka 147, 54-066 Wrocław, Poland
Tenure: September 2017 – July 2021 in TDL as Research & Development assistant.

Research work done in TDL:

During my time at TDL, I focused on examining the impact of epigenetic modulation by CSP TTK21 in Neurodevelopmental Deficits in Syngap1+/- Mice. This involved conducting animal behavioral experiments and various molecular experiments. Additionally, I worked on several cancer projects in the laboratory, gaining experience in immunohistochemistry techniques.

Mahadeva Swamy M. M.
Assistant professor, Faculty of Advanced Life Science, Hokkaido University, Japan.
Tenure: (from 05/2012 to 08/2014) in TDL, as Research & Development assistant.

Research work done in TDL:

In TDL, I worked on a project called “small molecule modulators of histone modifying enzymes”. I isolated several bioactive small molecules from medicinal plants as inhibitors of histone acetyltransferases p300 and PCAF. Apart from isolation I also worked on derivatization and structural activity relationship studies of bioactive natural products.   

Mohankrishna D V
Postdoctoral Associate, Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Ulm, Germany.

Tenure: from August 2007-December 2011 in TDL. Initially as R and D Assistant and then as M.S..

Research work done in TDL:

I had the choice of either working with a chromatin binding drug or a acetyltransferase (AT) modulator. I chose the AT modulators (benchwork onboarding guidance from Selvi R) and worked on how a natural product small molecule (plumbagin) could be toxic to cells and whether there were ways to decrease toxicity while maintaining inhibitory potential. Thanks to the lab environment, this turned out to be a truly interdisciplinary project with significant contribution from the organic chemists (initially Ravi K and then Pushpak M).