Department of
Biology

Richa Rikhy obtained her PhD in Molecular Biology in 2003 from TIFR, Mumbai. She was a postdoctoral fellow at National Institutes of Child Health and Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, USA before joining IISER Pune in 2010.

Research

Cell Biology of development and differentiation: Organelles, Membrane trafficking and polarity

Morphogenesis and Differentiation

Morphogenetic events at the plasma membrane and sub-cellular organelles occur during the formation of the first primary epithelium in metazoan embryogenesis and stem cell differentiation. The group uses high resolution microscopy and genetics to study morphogenesis of cell and organelle shape during embryogenesis and stem cell differentiation using Drosophila as a model system. The projects in the lab elucidate the mechanisms that regulate plasma membrane remodelling and polarity formation and the function of mitochondrial dynamics in embryogenesis and stem cell differentiation. Recent research from the lab shows that polygonal architecture is formed during early embryogenesis due to a balance between adhesion and contractile forces; BAR domain proteins function in plasma membrane dynamics and maintenance of villi remodelling, furrow extension and cleavage furrow formation in early embryogenesis; mitochondrial morphology is regulated during embryogenesis and stem cell differentiation for appropriate mitochondrial activity and signalling pathways.

Selected Publications

# equal contribution * corresponding author

Debasmita Mitra1, Georgina Goddard#, Sanjana S#, Aparna K#, Tom H. Millard and Richa Rikhy* (2026). MIM triggers formin to Arp2/3-based actin assembly in membrane remodeling in Drosophila embryos. Journal of Cell Biology, 10.1083/jcb.202502184

Rahul Kumar Verma#, Somya Madan# and Richa Rikhy*, (2026), Mitochondrial dynamics and signalling in stem cell differentiation, Journal of Cell Science 139 (1): jcs263847 (https://doi.org/10.1242/jcs.263847)

Bhavin Uttekar, Rahul Kumar Verma#, Darshika Tomer# and Richa Rikhy* (2024). Mitochondrial morphology dynamics and ROS regulate apical polarity and differentiation in Drosophila follicle cells, Development Mar 1;151(5):dev201732. doi: 10.1242/dev.201732

Bipasha Dey#, Debasmita Mitra#, Tirthasree Das, Aparna Sherlekar, Ramya Balaji, Richa Rikhy* (2023). Polarity protein distribution on the metaphase furrow regulates hexagon dominated plasma membrane organization in syncytial Drosophila embryos. bioRxiv 770453; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/770453, Genetics Volume 225, Issue 4, December 2023, iyad184, https://doi.org/10.1093/genetics/iyad184

Sameer Thukral, Bivash Kaity, Debasmita Mitra, Bipasha Dey, Pampa Dey, Bhavin Uttekar, Mithun K. Mitra*, Amitabha Nandi* and Richa Rikhy* (2022). Pseudocleavage furrows restrict plasma membrane associated PH domain in syncytial Drosophila embryos. Biophysical Journal, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2022.05.015.

Dnyanesh Dubal, Prachiti Moghe#, Rahul Kumar Verma#, Bhavin Uttekar and Richa Rikhy* (2022). Mitochondrial fusion regulates proliferation and differentiation in the type II neuroblast lineage in Drosophila. PLOS Genetics, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1010055