Parul Mehrotra

I come from a mixed scientific background. Having traversed multiple research themes from infections to aging to cell death, I have discovered that my one true love is metabolism of immune cells. So, if the topic excites you, join the team!!

Meet the PI

Research Experience

Dec 2009-Dec 2014

PhD
ICGEB, New Delhi

Understanding host metabolic perturbations in M.tuberculosis infections: During my PhD I carried out pioneering work to dissect the metabolic flux alterations brought about in host macrophages after M.tb infection. We were surprised to observe that the bacteria manifest it’s virulence by perturbing just a few choke points in the host metabolic network to suppress anti-bacterial host responses such as apoptotic cell death. Further, with a unique set of metabolic experiments we demonstrated the critical role played by a couple of host mitochondrial solute carrier family proteins in aiding M.tb. survival.

Oct 2015- Apr 2017

Post doctoral fellow
MPI-Age, Germany

1) Worked towards exploring how nucleolar size, governed by the highly conserved axis of Ncl-1 and Fibrillarin-1, impacts infection resistance in C.elegans and mammalian cells.

2) Explored the role played by SLC family of proteins in aging biology.

June 2017- March 2023

Postdoctoal Fellow

VIB, Belgium

Live cells are in a constant state of communication with their tissue neighborhood. However, whether dying cells do the same was the question I addressed during my post doc at VIB, Belgium. We uncovered prolific metabolite (&non-metabolite) based communication between both apoptotic and non-apoptotic cell death modalities with their neighborhood. These communication channels lead to rapid modification of the behaviors of the neighboring tissue, leading to rapid tissue remodelling, anti-inflammatory signalling and wound healing.

TEAM MEMBERS

Ph.D and Project Students

Shuruti Sood

Hailing from Delhi with a Masters degree in Microbiology, Shuruti is a PhD student focused on understanding the protein networks at play post cell clearance. She is also interested in understanding the phagocyte response to a diverse set of dead cargo.

Youhan Rafiq

With extensive training in multiple institutes across India, Youhan hails from Srinagar. While adjusting to the harsh Delhi summers, as a Ph.D student he is focussed on understanding how dying cells in infections affect the immometabolic landscape of the immune cells in the vicinity

Anchal Thakur

Anchal finished her M.Sc from IIT Karagpur. She is back in Delhi as a PhD student and is now exploting the inner workings of M.tuberculosis inflicted cell death on the out come of the infection and its associated pathology.

Pranav Chawla

Continuing with the influx of M.Sc. in Microbiology students in the lab, Pranav brings with him experties in M.tuberculosis infection biology and extensive BSL-3 experience. Pranav is working on multiple projects in the laboratory as a Research fellow.

Masters Students and trainees

Judith L. Pulamte

The youngest member of the team, Judith hails from Manipur and is currently pursuing her M.Sc from the School of Biological Sciences, IITD. Judith is interested in understanding organellar dynamics in phagocytes under stress.