I am a post doctoral computational biologist at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, UK. I did my PhD in structural bioinformatics at Cologne University Bioinformatics Center (CUBIC) under the supervision of Prof. Dietmar Schomburg. My PhD work involves development of efficient algorithms to computationally predict protein stability upon mutations and has direct implications in protein engineering, protein structure prediction and protein-protein docking algorithms. This work has been used to investigate disease causing protein mutations (e.g., prion protein mutations and related syndromes). I have now moved to the Proteomic Mass Spectrometry group in the Sanger Institute and working on predicting the phosphorylation site localisation in proteins using mass spectrometry data.

I was selected for the International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) PhD program in Cologne, Germany and started my work on September 2002. IMPRS PhD fellowships are mainly shared between two partners of the program: the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research and the University of Cologne. My work group (CUBIC) specialised in structural bioinformatics, metabolomics and scientific databases. It was also the home of the popular BRENDA enzyme database. As a part of my PhD work, I developed CUPSAT, a web application for predicting protein stability (thermal and chemical denaturants) upon point mutations. These predictions assist biologists for engineering thermostable or thermosensitive proteins, site directed mutagenesis, investigating protein stabilty for drug-protein interactions, protein crystalisation, etc.

I did M.Sc. (life sciences) in Trichy, India and attended vocational training courses in computer languages and packages. Before starting my PhD, I was working for Ram Informatics Ltd. in Hyderabad and Chennai, India in enterprise level web appication development for office automation and egovernance projects. During my masters, I had a hobby of custom PC assembling, configuration and networking which helped me to gain in-depth knowledge on operating systems including multiple Linux/Unix variants and Windows servers. I have passion for music, mostly contemporary, symphony and Indian music. At times, you may see me walking (with a camera), jogging or playing in Cambridge riverside :)