Akanksha Saini

PhD Student
(Joint Supervision under Dr. Manidipa Banerjee)
Kusuma School of Biological Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi

Email: akankshasaini09@gmail.com
Education: MSc(Biomedical Science), Dr. B. R. Amebdkar Center of Biomedical Research (ACBR), University of Delhi, New Delhi


Thesis Research:

Structural Characterization of large protein asemblies/aggregates

Self association of macromolecules especially proteins to form supramolecular complexes has been implicated in several critical cellular
functions such as transcription, translation, proteosomal degradation, compartmental motility and cargo. Besides, several non-native assemblies/aggregates of proteins such as amyloids have also been recently shown to be associated to several functionalities in fungi, bacteria and lower vertibrates. My work is mainly focussed at elucidating these structural aspects of these assemblies using modern day Cryo-electron microscopy and X-ray crystallography.

Awards/Fellowships/Grants:

Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) awarded by University Grant Commission (UGC), 2016(AIR-109).

Publications:

Jena R, Garg DK, Choudhury L, Saini A, Kundu B*. Heterologous expression of an engineered protein domain acts as chaperone and enhances thermotolerance of Escherichia coli. Int J Biol Macromol. 2017.(PDF).

Previous Research Experience:

MSc Dissertation: "Chronic dietary 2-deoxy-D-glucose alters innate immune function and prevents acute inflammation" - under supervision of Dr. A N Bhatt, Department of Radiation Biosciences, INMAS, DRDO.

BSc Dissertation: "Role of p53 in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia" - under supervision of Dr Rashid Mir, Research Scientist, Department of Biochemistry, Molecular oncology lab, Maulana Azad Medical College.