People

Varsha Singh, PhD

@VarshaS53228024 

Senior Lecturer (2023) University of Dundee

Wellcome Trust/DBT Senior Investigator (2022-2027)

Associate Professor (2018-2023),  Developmental Biology & Genetics, IISc, Bangalore

Assistant Professor (2012-2018), Department of Molecular Reproduction, Development and Genetics (MRDG), Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

Wellcome Trust/DBT Intermediate Fellowship Awardee (2013-2020) 

Post-doctoral Fellow, Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham in the research area of neural regulation of innate immune responses in Caenorhabditis elegans.

Ph.D., Department of Biochemistry, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore on the role of cytosolic chaperones in malarial parasite intra-erythrocytic development.

M.S. (Int. Ph.D.), Division of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

B.Sc., Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.

Other Professional Roles:

• Associate Editor of Biology for Resonance Journal of Science Education, published by Indian Academy of Sciences

https://www.ias.ac.in/Journals/Resonance_%E2%80%93_Journal_of_Science_Education/

• Editor for Microbiology Spectrum, published by the American Society of Microbiology

https://journals.asm.org/journal/spectrum

• Editor for Journal of Medical Microbiology, published by the Microbiology Society, UK

https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jmm

BIOGRAPHY

Varsha obtained her bachelor's degree at Banaras Hindu University. Following that she moved to the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore to pursue her interest in intricacies of host-microbe interactions. During her masters, she briefly worked on Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Prof. S Vijaya's lab and then on malarial parasite in Prof. Utpal Tatu's lab. She went on to pursue her PhD on investigating cytosolic chaperone complexes in the cytosol of human erythrocyte as well as in the parasite cytosol in infected red blood cells. Using a combination of proteomics and Cell Biology tools, she was able to uncover the composition and function of these two complexes in two separate cytosolic compartments within a  cell.

In her postdoctoral research in Alejandro Aballay's laboratory at Duke University (now at Oregon Health Science University), Varsha uncovered the role of heat shock factor and cytosolic chaperones as facilitators of innate immune response of C. elegans to various bacterial pathogens. She also discovered that overactivation of immune pathways can accelerate death due to infection, a condition akin to inflammation. She contributed to two landmark studies from the lab to show that G protein coupled receptors regulate innate immune responses in C. elegans. 

In her own laboratory at Indian Institute of Science, Varsha has set up a research program to uncover molecular bases of sensing, specifically pathogen recognition, by C. elegans. This is funded by the Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance. Her lab has discovered that specific odorant receptors and odor sensory neurons regulate immune response and longevity in C. elegans. The lab employs modern tools in biology as well as interdisciplinary approaches to uncover and study non canonical pattern recognition in C. elegans.