Student Details

Supervisors: Prof. Sandip Kaledhonkar at IIT Bombay & Prof. Trevor Lithgow at Monash University

Short Bio & project details:

Hey there! I am a PhD student enrolled in the prestigious IITB-Monash Joint PhD program (since 2024). I am an aspiring structural biologist with a focus on mycobacteriophages. These are nothing but viruses that prey on members of the Mycobacterium genera. Our long-term goal is to come up with a therapy against Mycobacterium tuberculosis, that causes tuberculosis which claims a lot many innocent lives. My job is to study how the virus interacts with its prey to identify some novel drug targets. I have completed my Bachelor’s & Master’s from Adamas University in West Bengal. Research to me is discovery fuelled by genuine curiosity and I have always been curious to learn the mysterious ways of nature. When I am not researching, you might find me lost in a good book or cooking up a blog. Working with viruses was my childhood dream, and now, here I am, living my ‘viral’ dream—one little phage at a time!