Events
Overview
2025
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June 2025
Prof. Wangikar delivered departmental seminars on “Harnessing metabolomics for precision diagnostics and fermentation”, showcasing our work at Vanderbilt University (June 7), Worcester Polytechnic Institute (June 13), and Georgia Tech (June 20) in USA.
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June 6, 2025
New publication in ACS Analytical Chemistry titled “DuReS: An R Package for Denoising Experimental Tandem Mass Spectra and Metabolite Annotation”. Congratulations Shayantan!
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June 6, 2025
Prof. Wangikar delivered an oral presentation on “Metabolic flux analysis and metabolic profiling reveal key insights for optimizing cyanobacterial chassis strains for biomanufacturing” at the 15th Cyanobacteria Workshop at Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN, USA).
Current team
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Managers/Postdocs:
Deepti Sahasrabuddhe
Senior Project Research Scientist | August 2019
About: Deepti oversees project coordination and industry collaborations, and is a certified project manager. She is also dept at seamlessly managing lab operations and people in the lab. With research experience at IIT Bombay, IISc Bangalore, and NII Delhi, her work spans protein and peptide chemistry, metabolic engineering, and metabolomics.
Interest (outside the lab): Playing with her son (and solving his school question papers) - when not attending meetings
Avinash Vellore Sunder
Research Associate | July 2024
About: Avinash has a PhD and postdoctoral experience in enzymology and biocatalysis, and research expertise in metabolic engineering and bioprocess technology. He earlier worked in the lab as a postdoc (from 2017-2019). He is the lab’s resident science communicator and contributes to writing manuscripts and grant proposals, preparing presentations, and generating content for the website and social media posts.
Interest (outside the lab): Other than science and writing, Avinash loves to read books, play badminton and Pokemon Go, and experiment with new cooking recipes.
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PhD students
Sneha Ashokkumar Rana
PhD student, PMRF fellow | January 2020
About: Sneha holds a M.S. in Biochemistry from The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Gujarat, and a B.S. in Biotechnology from Sardar Patel University, Gujarat. Her current Ph.D. research focuses on using mass spectrometry-based metabolomics approaches to identify novel biomarkers for Type 2 diabetes mellitus and its related complications in the Indian population.
Interest (outside the lab): Sneha loves to travel and be with nature.
Lokesh V
PhD student | January 2020
About: Lokesh holds a Master’s degree from IIT Kharagpur and is currently pursuing his doctoral research at IIT Bombay. His work primarily focuses on metabolic modeling for cyanobacterial biomanufacturing using Constraint Based Reconstruction and Analysis (COBRA).
Interest (outside the lab): Beyond research, Lokesh has interest in playing table tennis and socializing during his leisure time.
Kirti
PhD student | January 2022
About: Kirti holds a Master's degree in Biotechnology and a Bachelor's degree in Life Sciences. She has received extensive research training from esteemed institutions, CSIR-CDRI Lucknow, Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC) Delhi, and IIT Delhi. Her current PhD work focuses on metabolic pathway engineering of cyanobacteria using a synthetic biology approach to produce value-added small molecules and chemicals.
Interest (outside the lab): Kirti enjoys reading, dancing, exploring places and people.
Gaurav Ganesh Bingi
PhD student, PMRF fellow | January 2022
About: Gaurav holds a Masters degree in Biological Sciences from NMIMS, Mumbai. His current research focuses on engineering cyanobacteria for the production of biologics, aiming to bridge synthetic biology with affordable healthcare solutions.
Interest (outside the lab): Beyond the lab, he enjoys expressing himself through dance, sketching his ideas on paper, and playing cricket.
Shayantan Banerjee
PhD student, PMRF Fellow | KCDH | August 2022
About: Shayantan holds a MS (by research) degree in Biotechnology from IIT Madras. His current research focuses on omics data analysis, and development of in silico techniques for identifying biomarkers associated with type 2 diabetes.
Interest (outside the lab): Reading books
Nikita Vijaykumar Savalsang
PhD student | August 2023
About: Nikita joined our lab after completing her Master’s in Biotechnology from Ramnarain Ruia College, Mumbai. She began her research journey at IIT Bombay as a JRF in 2022 and is currently pursuing her Ph.D. Nikita’s research focuses on understanding the metabolic dynamics of marathon and endurance exercise in the Indian population using mass spectrometry-based metabolomics and lipidomics. She is actively involved in developing targeted MS-based methods for biomarker analysis.
Interest (outside the lab): When she’s not decoding metabolism, she’s painting, mandala-ing, playing badminton, or passionately vibing to Seventeen like it’s her second job.
Keerthana Vinod Kumar
PhD student, PMRF Fellow | KCDH | August 2023
About: Keerthana holds a M.Tech in Medical Biotechnology, and is currently pursuing her PhD. Her research focuses on identifying population-specific metabolic signatures of prediabetes and Type 2 diabetes in Indian cohorts by integrating metabolomics data with machine learning–based approaches for biomarker discovery.
Interest (outside the lab): Keerthana seeks adventures, both in academic corridors and on the artistic canvas
Ujjiti Pandey
PhD student | KCDH | January 2025
About: Ujjiti holds a M.Tech degree in Bioengineering and Computational Biology from CSIR-NCL, with experience in mammalian cell culture. Her current research focuses on bioprocess optimization and metabolomics to enhance plasmid titers, an essential requirement for cell and gene therapy applications.
Interest (outside the lab): When not being a full-time cell mom, I unwind by binge-watching sitcoms, TT or yoga.
Monalisa Kesh
PhD student | KCDH | January 2024
About: Monalisa holds a Masters degree in Biotechnology, Her current work focuses on diabetic kidney disease biomarker discovery and validation using mass spectrometry based metabolomics analysis.
Interest (outside the lab): She holds a senior diploma in Indian classical vocal music and enjoys reading, traveling, photography, and spending time with her dog.
Rishika Chatterjee
PhD student | August 2024
About: Rishika completed her Master’s in Microbiology in 2022 from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, with training in gas chromatography at CSIR-IICB. She previously worked as a JRF at IIT (BHU). Her current research focuses on engineering cyanobacteria for production of value-added chemicals.
Interest (outside the lab): Her interests beyond research include dancing, writing short stories and poems, and reading novels.
Sayaree Joardar
PhD student | IITB-Monash Academy | August 2024
About: Hailing from Kolkata, Sayeree completed her bachelor's at Techno Main, Salt Lake, and a joint master's from IIT Guwahati and Gifu University, Japan, specializing in bioactive food components and GC-MS techniques. She is currently focusing on metabolomics of fermented foods and advancing her skills in mass spectrometry.
Interest (outside the lab): She enjoys reading books, playing badminton, and listening to music.
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Project JRF
Gauri Mahesh Desai
Project Research Fellow | October 2022
About: Gauri holds a Master's degree in Marine Biotechnology and has experience in microbial metabolomics. Her current work focuses on how microbes manage and shift their metabolism, particularly in ways that can be applied to developing more sustainable biotechnological processes.
Interest (outside the lab): Gauri enjoys reading, watching movies and series, and creating abstract art that blends linework and calligraphy.
Kshitij Borhade
M. Tech, Chemical Engineering | 2023-2025
About: Kshitij is a graduate in Chemical Engineering from VIT, Pune, and he is currently working on the metabolic engineering of cyanobacteria for the bioproduction of succinate.
Interest (outside the lab): Kshitij is a passionate environmentalist and an Indian classical musician.
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Admin
Dipti Dhas
Nisha Mahadev Endole
Nitin
Alumni
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PhD
Meghna Srivastava
PhD, 2018-2025
About: Meghna worked on metabolomics-guided strain engineering of Synechococcus elongatus cyanobacteria to produce succinate.
Current affiliation: Postdoctoral scholar (with Prof. Oliver Fiehn), UC Davis
Virmal Jain
PhD, 2017-2024 and Research Associate (2024-25)
About: Viral worked on genome characterization of the local S. elongatus isolates (IITB1-8), and strain engineering to produce ethanol.
Current affiliation: Postdoc (with Prof. Julius Fredens), National University of Singapore
Hardik Dodia
PhD, 2018-2025
About: Hardik worked on the optimization of E. coli fed-batch bioprocesses on complex media using an integrated approach employing spent media metabolomics and metabolic modeling.
Current affiliation: Postdoc (with Prof. Shankar Subramanian), UC San Diego
Snehal Ganjave
PhD, 2017-2024
About: Snehal worked on developing bioprocesses for the production and refolding of ‘difficult-to-express’ therapeutic proteins and enzymes in E. coli.
Current affiliation: Specialist, Antibioime Centre (with Prof. Jim Wells), UC San Francisco
Vivek Mishra
PhD, 2016 - 2022
About: Vivek worked on 13C-metabolic flux analysis of cyanobacteria, and developing methods for untargeted metabolomics. He was also involved in Clarity Bio Systems.
Current affiliation:
Swati Madhu
PhD, 2017 - 2023
About: Swati’s PhD research focused on developing a synthetic biology toolbox to facilitate engineering of S. elongatus PCC 11801. This included a library of novel promoters, ribosome binding sites, and neutral sites. She also collaborated on projects on E. coli high cell density cultivation in shake flasks for recombinant proteins and the development of promoter library in S. elongatus PCC 7942.
Current affiliation: Scientist at Laurus Bio, leading a team of strain engineers exploring different biosystems for the production of different small molecules used in personal care and pharmaceutical industry.
Vaibhav Srivastava
PhD, 2016 - 2024
About: Vaibhav worked on the engineering indigenous cyanobacterial strains (S. elongatus PCC11801, PCC11802, IITB6) for the production of alkanes and 2,3-butanediol. He also worked on adaptive lab evolution of PCC11801 to improve solvent tolerance.
Current affiliation: Postdoc (with Prof. Brian Pfleger), University of Wisconsin-Madison
Prem Pritam
PhD, 2015 -2023
About: Prem worked on the engineering of S. elongatus strains for the production of mannitol. She also contributed significantly to a project with Reliance on metabolite profiling of a marine alga Picochlorum sp. under diurnal conditions mimicking outdoor cultivation environment.
Current affiliation: Postdoc (with Prof. Mark Blenner), University of Delaware
Damini Jaiswal
PhD, 2013 -2019
About:
Current affiliation: National Postdoc Fellow, ACTREC, Mumbai
Annesha Sengupta
PhD, 2013 -2019
About:
Current affiliation: Postdoc at Biozone, University of Toronto
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Postdocs/Manager/Research Scientist
Charulata Prasannan
Senior Project Manager 2016-2019
Current affiliation:
Research Scientist,
qBiome Pvt. Ltd.
Renu Pandey
Postdoc 2023-2025
Current affiliation:
Faculty Scientist,
Institute of Bioinformatics
Aditya Sarnaik
Research Scientist 2021-2023
Current affiliation:
Associate Research Professional, Arizona State University
Bratati Mukherjee
Senior Project Manager 2017-2020 (DBT Pan-IIT Centre for Bioenergy)
Current affiliation:
Project Manager at SINE,
IIT Bombay
Shinjinee Dasgupta
Senior Scientist 2017-2019
(DBT Pan-IIT Centre for Bioenergy)
Current affiliation:
Associate Professor,
Amity University (Noida)
Manohar Dange
Postdoc 2017-2018
Current affiliation:
Principal Investigator, Syngene International Ltd.
Address
Department of Chemical Engineering,
IIT Bombay
Contact
Lab: +91 22 25767232
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