Meet The Team

Principal investigator

Priyanka Upadhyai, PhD

Priyanka performed doctoral studies in the lab of Dr Gerard Campbell, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, USA. Here she studied mechanisms of transcriptional regulation. Using a modified ends out genome editing strategy she investigated why many eukaryotic transcriptional repressors utilize more than one accessory corepressor proteins, using Brinker a transcription factor in Drosophila as a model.

She went on to perform postdoctoral research with Dr Hilary Ashe at the Division of Molecular and Cellular Function, University of Manchester, UK. Here she used CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing and MS2 live imaging to dissect bone morphpogenetic protein (BMP) gradient and cell fate in the early Drosophila embryo.

She joined the faculty at Department of Medical Genetics, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal, MAHE, Manipal in 2016. She is broadly interested in collaborative human genetics research focused to decipher disease mechanisms. Her work uses Drosophila and mammalian cell culture to model and understand the pathomechanisms underlying rare genetic disorders. She is also interested in exploring the genetic variations in human disease in worldwide populations. And she studies primary ciliogenesis and its role in organismal development and disease.

‘Out of lab’ Priyanka is a passionate runner. She discovered running late in life but it has reinforced her belief in living life outside comfort zones.

PhD student

Vishal Singh Guleria, MSc.

Vishal is currently a PhD student in the lab. He works on dissecting the mechanisms underlying rare Mendelian skeletal dysplasias that involve primary cilia deregulation.

Junior Research Fellow

Ibakordor Khyriem, MSc.

Iba completed her BS-MS Int. Master’s degree from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Berhampur.

​

She was a DST-INSPIRE Scholar. She completed a summer Internship at IISER, Thiruvananthapuram through the Institute Summer Visiting Programme with Dr. Ullasa Kodandaramaiah.

For her master’s thesis, she worked with Dr. B. R. Selvi at IISER, Berhampur studying the role of RNA demethylase FTO on embryonic stem cell pluripotency.

'Out of lab' she enjoys origami, badminton and baking.

PhD Student

Neha Quadri, MSc.

Neha got her Bachelor’s degree in Microbiology, Biochemistry and Chemistry from Aurora Degree College, Hyderabad, India.

As an undergrad she worked on a summer project under the guidance of Dr. Ravi Manjithaya, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bangalore, India, through the Project Oriented Biology Education (POBE) fellowship program from JNCASR.

She obtained a Master’s from Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB), Bangalore, India.

​

Currently she is performing doctoral research in the lab of Dr Priyanka Upadhyai. Here she is studying the crosstalk of primary ciliogenesis with other cellular processes such as autophagy in chondrogenic differentiation and their abrogation in rare chondrodysplasias.

​

'Out of lab' her interests include reading, watching sci – fi movies , skating and sketching.