About

I am a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratories of Prof. Peter Walter and Prof. David Agard at UCSF, supported by a K99 pathway to independence grant from NIGMS. I received my Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from UCLA in the laboratory of Prof. David Eisenberg.

My research interests lie at the interface of structural biology and biochemistry.

I have a passion for utilizing cutting-edge structural techniques and targeted drug design. I believe that understanding basic cell biological processes will ultimately help us design specific drugs for protein misfolding disorders such as neurodegenerative disorders, cancer and metabolic diseases.

In my postdoctoral research, I have utilized structural and biochemical approaches to study macromolecular assemblies.

I developed high-affinity nanobodies against SARS-CoV2, the virus that led to the COVID-19 pandemic. The nanobodies block its interaction with the human Ace2 receptor and thus prevent infection.

In my recent work, I have utilized cryoEM with deep sequencing to investigate the mechanistic details of co-translational regulation by the protein quality control sensor, IRE1.

In another project, I determined the mechanism of alternate translation initiation by the protein, eIF2A. I determined the structure of eIF2A in complex with 40S ribosomal subunits using cryoEM.

My postdoctoral work builds on my extensive graduate training in X-ray crystallography and structure-guided drug design. For more details, please see research interests and publications.

I grew up in Delhi, India where I received my Bachelor’s in Biotechnology Engineering from Maharshi Dayanand University, India.

I live in San Francisco with my husband and two kids.