Present Affiliations 

* MRC-LMB
* Trinity College
* University of Cambridge

Past Affiliations 

* Molecular Biophysics Unit
* Indian Institute of Science
* Indian Academy of Sciences
* Center for Biotechnology
* Anna University

I am currently a Group Leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK (visit my group page here) and a Schlumberger Research Fellow at Darwin College, University of Cambridge. Before taking up this position, I was a visiting fellow at the National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Institutes of Health with Dr. L. Aravind.

My doctoral research was focussed on understanding the "Evolution of transcriptional regulatory networks" with Dr. Sarah Teichmann at the Medical Research Council - Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. During this time, I was on a LMB-Cambridge fellowship programme along with an External Research Studentship award from Trinity College. I was also the recipient of the Max Perutz Student Prize for "outstanding research" carried out at the LMB.

Regarding my formal education, I graduated from Center for Biotechnology, Anna University, Chennai, India with a gold medal in the field of Industrial Biotechnology. The Bachelor of Technology programme offered by the Centre for Biotechnology is an inter-disciplinary course filled with a rigorous course work, experimental work and fun!. We had extensive coursework in Mathematics, Chemical Engineering, Bioprocess Technology, Microbiology, Pathogenesis, Immunology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. The training offered at the undergraduate level was just fantastic and I totally enjoyed my time studying at CBT. It was during my undergraduate days that I received the Young Fellowship award from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and the Summer Research Fellowship from the Indian Academy of Science to work with Prof. P. Balaram, Molecular Biophysics Unit, IISc, Bangalore, India.

I did my schooling at M.CT.M Chidambaram Chettiar Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Chennai, India where I came third in the state in my Matriculation examinations. It was my schooling at M.CT.M which kindled my interest in science and the projects at IISc that motivated me to do reasearch.

Finally, it is because of my loving parents and my sister (Nithya) who have helped me a lot in every stage of my life that I was able to pursue what I wanted to do without looking back.