Beloved Alumini
Ph.D Students
Dr. Payal Jha (2015-2022)
Hailing from New Delhi, Payal did her MSc from University of Hyderabad before joining our lab for her PhD with a research fellowship from CSIR, Govt. of India. Her thesis was entitled “Elucidating the function of nuclear-encoded repair proteins in Plasmodium mitochondrial genome repair”. She uncovered the crucial roles of the nuclear encoded recombinase PfRad51 and helicase PfBlm in the repair of damaged mitochondrial genome of malaria parasite.
After finishing her PhD Payal joined the Eli Lilly Services India Pvt. Ltd, Bangalore, and currently she is their Lead Scientific writer.
Dr. Wahida Tabassum (2015-2021)
Wahida hails from Hazaribagh, Jharkhand. She did her MSc from University of Hyderabad before joining our lab with a research fellowship from UGC, Govt. of India. Her thesis was entitled “Studying the canonical and non-canonical functions of Hsp90 in Plasmodium falciparum chromatin biology”. She discovered that Plasmodium Hsp90 not only provides functional maturation of histone deacetylase PfSir2, but also regulates the transcription of PfSIR2 via epigenetic modification. She further uncovered that the key recombinase PfRad51 is a direct client of PfHsp90.
After completing her PhD Wahida joined as a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, USA. Currently she is doing her second postdoctoral research at Jennifer Lillian Small-Saunders lab, Columbia University, New York.
Dr. S. Niranjan (2014-2020)
Niranjan comes from Tirupati, a town in Andhra Pradesh. He did his MSc from University of Hyderabad before joining our lab with a fellowship from UGC, Govt. of India. His thesis title was “Elucidation of DNA repair activity of PfBLM and potentiation of artemisinin action by small molecule inhibitor of RecQ helicase”. He identified a chemical inhibitor of Plasmodium helicase PfBlm, and demonstrated that this small-molecule-inhibitor works synergistically with Artemisinin and Chloroquine in both drug-sensitive and drug-resistant malaria parasite.
After completing his PhD, Niranjan worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Central Florida, Orlando, United States. He is currently working as an Associate Scientific Manager at Biocon Biologics, Bangalore.
Dr. Pratap Vydyam (2013-2019)
Pratap hails from Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh. Before joining our lab, he did his MSc from National Degree Collage, Kurnool. Supported by a research fellowship from UGC, Govt. of India Pratap completed his PhD thesis entitled “Studying the role of PfRad51 recombinase in var gene rearrangements in Plasmodium falciparum and targeting its activity with small molecule inhibitor”. He identified a chemical inhibitor of recombinase PfRad51 and demonstrated that this inhibitor blocks the strand-invasion activity of PfRad51 and thus abrogates DNA double strand break repair activity of the parasite. He has also established pivotal role of PfRad51 in antigenic diversification.
After completing his PhD, Pratap joined as a Postdoctoral Associate at Yale School of Medicine, Section of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, USA. He is still continuing there.
Dr. M. V. Shalu (2009-2015)
Shalu is a native of Hyderabad and she did her MSc from University of Hyderabad. She worked in our lab with a research fellowship from CSIR, Govt. of India towards her PhD thesis entitled “Study of epigenetic regulation of virulence gene expression in Plasmodium falciparum”. She uncovered that PfOrc1 plays a Sir3 like function during Sir2 mediated telomere silencing.
After completing her PhD, Shalu worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the National Institute of Animal Biotechnology, Hyderabad. She also worked as a lecturer at Bhavan's Vivekananda College, Hyderabad.
Dr. Sugith Babu (2009-2015)
Hailing from Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, Sugith did his MSc from Acharya Nagarjuna University before joining our lab. Funded by a research fellowship from CSIR, Govt. of India, Sugith uncovered the conserved role of Plasmodium Mre11 in DNA repair. The title of his PhD thesis was “Functional characterization of Plasmodium falciparum DNA repair protein PfalMre11”.
After completing his PhD, Sugith worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the Dept. of Biochemistry, IISc, Bangalore. Currently he is working as a post-doctoral fellow, at the Functional Genomics and Metabolism Research Unit, BMB, Southern University of Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
Dr. Nabamita Roy (2008-2014)
Hailing from Gauripur, Assam, Nabamita did her MSc from Tezpur University before joining our lab with a fellowship from CSIR, Govt. of India. Her thesis was entitled “Characterization of a dominant negative mutant of PfRad51 and elucidation of its role in recombinational DNA repair in Plasmodium biology”. She discovered that homologous recombination is the predominant DNA repair pathway and this cannot be compensated by any other DNA repair mechanisms in the malaria parasites.
After completing her PhD, Nabamita worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the National Institute of Malaria Research, New Delhi.
Dr. G. Sita Swati (2007- 2013)
Swati is a native of Hyderabad and she did her M.Sc. from Osmania University and Advanced PG Diploma from University of Hyderabad before joining our lab to conduct her PhD work with a fellowship from CSIR, Govt. of India. The title of her thesis was “Study of DNA double strand break repair proteins of Toxoplasma gondii: an implication for inefficient gene targeting”. She correlated the weak ATP-hydrolysis activity of Toxoplasma gondii Rad51 with the less efficient utilization of the homologous recombination pathway during the repair of DNA double strand breaks in this parasite.
After completing her PhD, Swati worked in HK academy (affiliated to CBSE, Delhi and CHSE, Odisha) Kujang, Odisha.
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Dr. Wahida Tabassum
(2022-23)
After completing her PhD Wahida briefly worked as a postdoctoral Research Associate in my lab before joining the Kafsack lab at the Weill Cornell Medical Collage, Cornell University, USA.
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Dr. M. Purna Chandra
(2019-20)
Purna did his PhD from National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad, before joining our lab. After working as a Research Associate in our lab Purna joined back National Institute of Nutrition as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. Currently, he is working as a Research Professor in the Department of Marine Food Science at Gangneung-Wonju National University, South Korea.
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Dr. S. Abdul Nabi
(2013-16)
Nabi did his PhD from Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati. After working as a Kothari postdoctoral fellow in our lab Nabi worked as a Quality Controller and Project Manager in the Clinical Research Department at Vimta Labs Limited, Hyderabad. Currently he is working as a Head, Lucid Medical Diagnostics Pvt. Ltd., Hyderabad.
Postdoctoral Fellows
MSc & MTech Students
(2024-25)
Akriti Verma
Upagnya Dash
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(2023-24)
Darshana Chhaparia
Nruparaj Padhan
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(2022-23)
Maria Mukherjee
Pallavi M
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(2021-22)
​​​Deepak Kumar Rout
Tiyas Sengupta
Ashish Gupta
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(2020-21)
Saswati Biswal
Girija Jogwar
(2019-20)
Tanishka
Tushar Damu Sarve
K. Sushma
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(2018-19)
Sandeepan Ghosh
Renu Rathore
N. Sanghamitra
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(2017-18)
​​​Parth Gupta
V. Chandrika
Sayan Bakshi
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(2016- 17)​
Sayan Bakshi
Priyanka Singh
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(2015-16)
​​Vasu Saini
Ashesh Vaidya
(2014-15)
Wahida Tabassum
Sudeshna Roy Chowdhury
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(2013-1014)
Tejveer Singh
Telugu Suresh
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(2012-13)
Dibyendu Dutta
Y. Prathyusha
Thimma Gurudu
(2011-12)
K. Raghupati
Y.V. Narayana
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(2010-11)
Siddheshwari Advani
Jaishree Tripathi
Arti Jasrotia
Rakesh Naik
(2009- 10)
Shalini Agarwal
Aarti Singh
Biswaranjan Pradhan
Suresh Chalapareddy
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(2008-2009)
Shalu M. Varunan
Vivek Kumar
Shikhar Verma
Asutosh Arya
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(2007- 08)
Rasmita Samal
D. V. S. Sudhakar
V. Srinivas