Alan Varghese

BS (Research) Biology, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, 2020

During my undergrad years, I initially set out to understand how and to what extent visual cues affect our perception of smell. Following this, my colleagues and I discovered a new multicellular behavior by Salmonella typhimurium and described why and mechanistically how it formed. We later developed a game theory model to explain how quorum sensing could control this behavior.

In my final year of undergrad, I received the Khorana Fellowship and worked on my thesis project in Evgeny Nudler's lab at NYU School of Medicine on:

1) Developing new sequencing techniques to better understand regulation of transcription in E. coli

2) Improving our understanding of how RNA polymerase targeting antibiotic Rifampicin inhibited bacterial cell growth and how we could sensitize/desensitize bacteria to it.

Now, as a joint-PhD student in the Littman and Nudler labs, I will be exploring how various bacterial factors affect bacteria-specific and global immune responses.

In my free time, I love to try new ice cream/gelato places in the city and also make ice cream at home.

 

Publications:

  1. Varghese A, Ray S, Verma T, Nandi D. Multicellular String-Like Structure Formation by Salmonella Typhimurium Depends on Cellulose Production: Roles of Diguanylate Cyclases, YedQ and YfiN. Frontiers in Microbiology. 2020 Dec 14; 11:613704. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2020.613704. PMID: 33381103; PMCID: PMC7769011.