Molecular Biology (MSc/PhD)

Rahul Shaha

EDUCATION

College / University

Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

Highest Degree

Master of Science Biotechnology

Major Subjects

Cell Biology, Biophysics, Analytical Biochemistry, Immunology, Enzymology, Molecular Biology, Genetic Engineering
Shaha

Country

India

Lab Experience

Wet Lab – Flourescence, CD and UV-Visible spectroscopy; Cloning and expression of gene in bacterial system; Purification of proteins from bacteria using column chromatography; SDS PAGE; Dry Lab – Supervised machine learning using Weka Tool; Modelling of proteins based on Homology; Proteins structure visualization using PyMOL and Coot; Molecular Docking using AutoDock.

Projects / Research

  • 2019 – 2020: Predication of Donor substrates of glycosyltransferases using in-silico approaches
  • 2019: Study of weak interactions in protein and developing a program to predict Pi-Pi interaction between carbonyl residues in PDB file of protein
  • 2016 – 2017: Extraction of microbial enzymes for the preparation of biological detergent
  • 2015: Extraction and biochemical characterization of lipase from oil seeds

Scholarships / Awards

2020 – 2021: Stipend by the International Max Planck Research School.
2018 – 2020: DBT scholarship for in M.Sc. Biotechnology by the Department of Biotechnology, India
2019: MYTH (Mary-Yoshio Translational Hexagon) Award for Fujio-Cup quiz, Japan
2018: Offered Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) award by CSIR India (All India Rank 61)
2016: Awarded Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana (KVPY) fellowship by the Department of Science and Technology, India

SCIENTIFIC INTERESTS AND GOALS

My current scientific interests are protein structure and function relationship. Protein function is determined by its 3D structure which in turn depends upon its sequence i.e. sequence - structure-function paradigm. However, this paradigm is incomplete without considering consequences of protein dynamics - a protein exists in various conformations and there are examples in which the same protein can have more than one function. Understanding this phenomenon of protein structure and function will help us gain more insight into how a protein functions in a cell, how they are stabilized, and how they can be modulated to manifest improved function.