IISER Pune

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Biology

Our research focuses on frontier areas in Biological Sciences. We aim for research that seamlessly integrates physics, chemistry, mathematics and computational sciences to answer key biological questions. Research in Biology at IISER currently encompasses both theoretical and experimental approaches to the broad areas of Systems Biology, Ecology and Population Dynamics, Evolutionary-Developmental Biology, Cancer Biology, Neurobiology, Epigenetics and Gene-Environment interactions.

IISER Pune is actively recruiting more faculty for its Biology program and would like to strengthen both core areas in Biology as well as multidisciplinary research areas.

For enquiries about faculty positions write to Dr. Saikrishnan Kayarat (saikrishnan at iiserpune.ac.in).

Prospective PhD students are encouraged to send their queries to biophdselection@iiserpune.ac.in. Detailed eligibility criteria and timetable of admission process would be posted here. Please note that students interested in pursuing research in Ecology and Evolution should have cleared GATE (Ecology and Evolution ) and those wanting to pursue PhD in other areas of Biology should have cleared the JGEEBILS.

Facilities Centres of Excellence Academic Advisors Faculty Positions

In addition to the members listed in the table below, the following faculty members are also Joint Faculty members in the Biology department:

1. S. Sandanaraj Britto (Chemistry)

2. Jeetender Chugh (Chemistry)

3. Pranay Goel (Mathematics)

4. Amrita Hazra (Chemistry)

Name	Designation	Research
Faculty Members
Nixon M. Abraham	Assistant Professor	Neural circuits and behaviour; Olfaction
Collins Assisi	Assistant Professor	Information processing by neuronal networks
Chaitanya Athale	Associate Professor	Self-organization and cell morphogenesis
Ramana Athreya	Associate Professor	Active galaxies, galaxy cluster radio sources, high redshift Universe, imaging techniques; Biodiversity research & conservation
Nagaraj Balasubramanian	Associate Professor	Cell Biology: cell adhesion, trafficking, cell migration and growth
Anjan Banerjee	Professor and Dean (Research and Development)	Plant developmental biology, Micro RNA (miRNA) and gene regulation, Long distance signalling and plant-pathogen interaction
Deepak Barua	Associate Professor	Plant physiology, physiological ecology and evolutionary ecology
Sutirth Dey	Professor	Population dynamics, life-history evolution, simulations, Drosophila melanogaster
Sanjeev Galande	Professor (currently on lien to Shiv Nadar University)	Epigenetics, Chromatin biology, Regulation of gene expression, Nuclear organization and function
Aurnab Ghose	Associate Professor	Neurobiology
Pranay Goel	Associate Professor	Mathematical biology: physiology and type 2 diabetes. Data science and predictive modeling for healthcare and precision (personalized) medicine
Siddhesh S Kamat	Associate Professor	Chemical Biology, Metabolomics, Chemoproteomics, Lipid Metabolism, Protein Biochemistry (Joint Faculty in Chemistry)
Krishanpal Karmodiya	Assistant Professor	Epigenetics and Transcriptional Control in Plasmodium
Saikrishnan Kayarat	Professor and Dean (Student and Campus Activities)	Structural biology
Mayurika Lahiri	Associate Professor	DNA damage and cell cycle, 3D studies of breast cancer progression
M. S. Madhusudhan	Associate Professor	Bioinformatics and Structure
Nishad Matange	Assistant Professor	Evolution and Genetics of Antimicrobial Resistance in Bacteria
Suhita Nadkarni	Associate Professor	Biophysical models of synaptic plasticity in health and disease
Mridula Nambiar	Assistant Professor	Meiotic recombination and chromosomal segregation in yeast and mammals
Gayathri Pananghat	Associate Professor	Structural Biology of Cytoskeletal Systems
Sagar Pandit	Assistant Professor	Chemical and molecular ecology of multitrophic interactions involving plant, herbivore and its natural enemies
Kalika Prasad	Associate Professor	Stem cell, regeneration and patterning in plants
Thomas Pucadyil	Professor and Chair, Biology; and Rahul Bajaj Chair Professor	Membrane Biochemistry and Biophysics, Vesicular Transport
Sunish Kumar Radhakrishnan	Associate Professor	Cell Cycle Control and Differentiation in Bacteria, Antimicrobial Resistance
Sudha Rajamani	Associate Professor and Deputy Chair, Biology	Origins of life
Raghav Rajan	Assistant Professor	Neural mechanisms underlying movement initiation in songbirds
Girish Ratnaparkhi	Associate Professor	Gene regulation, innate immunity, embryonic development, drosophilia
Richa Rikhy	Associate Professor	Cell Biology of development and differentiation: Membrane trafficking and polarity
Kundan Sengupta	Associate Professor	Chromosome biology in development and disease
L. S. Shashidhara	Professor (currently on lien to Ashoka University)	Evolution of appendage forms, functional genomics, drug discovery
Jayant B. Udgaonkar	Professor and Director	Study of protein folding, unfolding and aggregation using tools of protein engineering and physical biochemistry. (Joint Faculty in Chemistry)
Visiting Faculty
Vineeta Bal	Visiting Faculty	Research focus: T cell biology
Neelesh Dahanukar	Visiting Faculty	Molecular phylogeny, Phylogeography, Systematics, Molecular epidemiology of wildlife diseases, Conservation biology, Evolutionary game theory
V. S. Rao	Visiting Faculty	Plant biology, plant genetics, breeding
Satyajit Rath	Visiting Faculty	Immunology: generation and activation of T, B and antigen-presenting cells (APCs) of myeloid lineage
Fellows
Anand Krishnan	DST-INSPIRE Faculty Fellow	Interdisciplinary studies of bird sensory signals
Independent Scientist
Keerthi Harikrishnan	WOS-A DST Scientist