I am interested in ...
Understanding the metabolic capabilities of disease-causing pathogens using computational and experimental biology
To discover and design novel therapeutics using high-throughput screening and artificial intelligence algorithms
Please visit my Publications to
learn more about the work I do.
Postdoctoral Associate
Aug 2021 – Present
Systems biology approaches to identify novel antibiotics and elucidate their mechanism of action funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
Supervisor: Prof. James J. Collins / collinslab.mit.edu
Postdoctoral Affiliate
Aug 2021 – Present
Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow
June 2022 – Present
Accelerating structure-based anti-parasitic discovery and design with deep learning
Supervisor: Prof. Sebastian Lourido / louridolab.wi.mit.edu
Postdoctoral Researcher
Mar 2020 – Mar 2021 (1 year)
Doctoral Student
Jan 2015 – Mar 2020 (5 years 2 months)
Metabolic networks governing Toxoplasma gondii persistence and transmission
Interdisciplinary PhD (IPhD) project funded by the Swiss Initiative for Systems Biology (SystemsX.ch)
• A stage-specific genome-scale metabolic model for the apicomplexan parasite, T. gondii was generated and drug targets were validated with high-throughput experimental approaches: CRISPR-Cas9, metabolomics and transcriptomics.
Supervisor: Prof. Dominique Soldati-Favre, University of Geneva
Co-supervisor(s): Prof. Vassily Hatzimanikatis, EPFL and Prof. Adrian Hehl, Institute of Parasitology (IPZ), University of Zürich
Doctoral Student
Jun 2015 – Aug 2015 (3 months)
Jan 2017 – Sep 2017 (9 months)
Research Assistant
Feb 2014 – Nov 2014 (8 months)
Elucidating the role of protein phosphorylation in regulating Escherichia coli metabolism using 13C metabolic flux analysis, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), targeted mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and phospho-proteomic approaches. The work was done at the Institute of Molecular Systems Biology (IMSB) led by Prof. Uwe Sauer.
Clinical Data Assistant
Mar 2012 – Apr 2013 (1 year 1 month)
Assisted in the development of an early-stage machine learning algorithm for the generation of internal study protocols and case report forms through meta-data analysis. The work was done as a team led by Dr. Kamran Rastgooy.
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Jan 2011 – Aug 2011 (8 months)
In collaboration with Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M), Department of Biotechnology
Molecular dynamics simulation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Mex-B efflux pump inhibition
Performed molecular docking and dynamic simulations to study small molecule inhibition of multidrug efflux pumps. Packages from Schrödinger Maestro 9.0, GROMACS 4.5 and PyMol for molecular visualisations were used. The work was supervised by Prof. Waheeta Hopper.
University of Geneva/ EPFL, Switzerland
PhD in Biomedical Sciences
2015 – 2020
ETH Zürich, Switzerland
Master of Science in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics
2011 – 2014
University of California, Davis, USA
International Exchange Program in Biology
Fall 2009
SRM IST, Chennai, India
Bachelor of Technology in Bioinformatics
2007 – 2011
Postdoc.Mobility Fellowship, Swiss National Science Foundation
2021 – 2023 (2 years)
Laemmli Prize for outstanding doctoral thesis 2021
Swiss Initiative in Systems Biology Fellowship
SystemsX.ch interdisciplinary PhD program
2015 – 2018 (3 years)
BPCL Scholarship for higher education
2011 – 2013 (2 years)
University Grants Commission, Government of India
Summer Research Fellowship
2010 (1 semester)
University of California, Davis, USA
Global Study Scholarship
2009 (1 semester)
SRM IST Merit Scholarship for undergraduate studies
2007 – 2009 (2 years)
ReMinfo
Refugee and Migrant information portal: Switzerland
April 2020 – Sep 2020 (6 months)
Sep 2020 – Present (Donor and Consultant)
ReMinfo aims to provide refugees and migrants with a one-stop web-based platform containing reliable and useful information for their daily lives, facilitating their rapid integration within society.
The project was conceived as part of the national VersusVirus hackathon which ran in early April 2020, and focused on issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic.