I am a third year PhD student in the Atit lab at Case Western. I am interested in understanding both the role of Wnt signalling in development of craniofacial bones and in skin fibrosis. Currently, I am learning techniques like cryosectioning, immunostaining and mouse genetics till I carve out my project.
I was born in Bangalore, which is a city in south India famous for its gunpowder (an indian delicacy!). I got my bachelors degree in Biotechnology from SRM IST in Chennai, after which I came to the US to pursue my masters in Cellular and Molecular biology at the University of New Haven, Connecticut. One of my projects in my undergrad was on the Drosophila model organism to understand fecundity changes to popular Ayurvedic treatments. When I was at UNH, my thesis was based on evaluating the effect of folic acid supplementation on the DNA repair mechanisms of MEF (mouse embryonic fibroblast) cells. I also have experience with mouse handling when I interned at the J.B. Pierce Laboratory at Yale, Connecticut to assist in studying olfaction in mice. I realized fast that working in the lab, planning experiments and analyzing data is something I enjoy, which is why I decided to do a PhD.
I joined the Atit lab because I wanted to work on the mouse animal model and I am obsessed with cool microscope images. The Atit lab is the only lab I know that enforces a mandatory “fun day” where we plan to make ice cream or 3D print stuff! When I am not in lab, I love taking aesthetic pictures, reading books (ONLY fiction) and playing the guitar!