(6jk) Assessing Role of Signaling Network Properties at the Immune System and Cancer Nexus

The overall goal of my research career will be setting up Systems Biology Lab which focuses on answering the fundamental question of how network architecture of signaling pathways influence cellular behavior. I am interested in signals that activate master transcription factors that respond to cues arising from immune stimulation and inflammatory processes. During my postdoc, I have been looking at the influence of genetic and non-genetic sources of variability and how they affect heterogeneity of response of cancer cells to immune signals. For this I am investigating the causal link between single cell signaling dynamics, transcription factor reporter activity and the nascent transcriptome.

Selected Skills learned during PhD and PostDoc: Molecular Biology WetLab, Time Lapse Fluorescence Microscopy for Single Cell Imaging, Nascent RNA Sequencing using PROSeq, NextGen Bioinformatics Sequencing Analysis, Mathematical Modeling of Biological Systems, Machine Learning

Teaching Interests: I love to work on topics that require mathematical modeling of biological phenomena. Therefore, I would like to teach topics like Systems Biology, Signaling Pathways, Network Analysis and Mathematical Modeling. These reflect the core research areas of my expertise gained during my PhD and Postdoc years. In addition, concepts from Chemical Engineering like Chemical Kinetics, Reaction Engineering and Engineering Mathematics are used extensively for my research and therefore, I am very comfortable with teaching these courses. Most importantly, I am interested in using new software based learning tools to make learning of complex concepts easy and to stimulate critical thinking skills in students.