Research Interests

During my Ph.D., I worked on transcriptional regulation of Chandipura virus, a deadly human pathogen. However, during the course of studies I noticed that signaling network within host-cellular milieu may both positively and negative affect viral multiplication process. These observations led me to develop interest in cellular signaling network in general, with particular interest in NF-kB signaling, an important mediator of host immune response.

Various stimuli were shown to activate NF-kB pathway, however, with distinct temporal profiles for nuclear localization of the transcription factor as well as a partially non-redundant NF-kB dependant transcriptional program that eventually determines fine-tunings of precise physiological response. During my Post-Doctoral work I aim to investigate mechanisms underlying stimulus specific NF-kB activation profile with particular interest in activation pathway for NF-kB in response to non-canonical stimuli. Currently, I am comparing temporal profile and activation mechanism in MEFs in response to two distinct sub-class of stimuli, namely TNF-a, an inflammatory stimuli and Lymphotoxin-beta, a stimuli involved in lymph node organogenesis. Hypothesis for existence of stimulus specific inhibitors and different mechanisms for distinct sub-set of stimuli to induce NF-kB response will thus be tested by utilizing mouse knock-out cell-lines and biochemical means.

Publications