Experience

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• (Senior) Postdoctoral Associate
  Aug 2023 – Present

• Postdoctoral Fellow
  Aug 2021 – Aug 2023

Discovery and design of novel antibiotics and elucidating their mechanisms of action funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)

Supervisor: Prof. James J. Collins / collinslab.mit.edu

Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Wyss Institute

• Research Affiliate
  Aug 2021 – Present

Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research

• Visiting Scientist
  June 2022 – Present

Accelerating structure-based anti-parasitic discovery with deep learning

Supervisor: Prof. Sebastian Lourido / louridolab.wi.mit.edu

University of Geneva, Switzerland

• Postdoctoral Researcher
  Mar 2020 – Mar 2021

• Doctoral Student
  Jan 2015 – Mar 2020

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

EPF Lausanne, Switzerland

• Doctoral Student
  Jun 2015 – Aug 2015
  Jan 2017 – Sep 2017

ETH Zürich, Switzerland

• Research Assistant
  Feb 2014 – Nov 2014

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.

Roche Molecular Diagnostics, Switzerland

• Clinical Data Assistant
  Mar 2012 – Apr 2013
  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.

SRM Institute of Science and Technology, India

• Undergraduate Research Assistant
  Jan 2011 – Aug 2011
  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.

Education

• 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 Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, India
  Bachelor of Technology in Bioinformatics
  2007 – 2011

Fellowships and Awards

• • 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 Merit Scholarship for undergraduate studies
    2007 – 2009 (2 years)

Memberships

• Associate member, Faculty Opinions (F1000)
  2019 – 2021

• LS2: Life Sciences society and network in Switzerland
  2018 – 2020

• MalarX consortium for Malaria Research
  2015 – 2019

• iClone, Bioinformatics Association, SRM IST
  2007 -- 2011

Volunteering

• ReMinfo
  Refugee and Migrant information portal: Switzerland
  April 2020 – Sep 2020 (Co-founder and Member)
  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.