inStem researchers Drs. Anusree Mahanta and Baskar Bakthavachalu are recent awardees of the Wellcome Trust DBT India Alliance early career fellowship and Intermediate fellowship respectively.

Anusree is a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Tina Mukherjee’s laboratory in the Regulation of Cell Fate (RCF) theme at inStem. During the fellowship, Anusree will investigate the physiological role of myeloid cells in regulating systemic metabolic homeostasis, including a comparative analysis across development in the fruitfly, Drosophila melanogaster. This work complements ongoing efforts of the Mukherjee lab, which focuses on blood cell mediated regulation of global metabolism. Anusree obtained her PhD from Tezpur University, Assam.

Dr Baskar Bakthavachalu is an independent investigator at the Tata Institute for Genetics & Society, Centre at inStem (TIGS-CI). His laboratory studies the role of RNP (RiboNucleoProtein) granules in neurodegeneration. While currently investigating mechanistic details of this process in Drosophila, the laboratory proposes to extend their findings to iPSC-based cellular systems and murine models. Dr Baskar Bakthavachalu obtained his PhD from NCCS Pune and his postdoctoral training with Dr. Daniel Schoenberg at the University of Ohio and then with Prof. K. VijayRaghavan, as a Campus Fellow at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore.