FACULTY

Prof. N. Yathindra, Director and Professor of Bioinformatics Prof. N. Yathindra is Director, Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB). He received his Ph.D. from the Center of Advanced Study in Biophysics, University of Madras. His postdoctoral work was carried out at University of Wisconsin, Madison. Prof. Yathindra has served as Chairman, School of Physical Sciences and Dean-Academic at University of Madras. His research involves the use of computational approaches to study structure and function of biological macromolecules and he has made notable contributions to the development of stereochemical principles of nucleic acids. He is a member of the Indian Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Kshitish Acharya, obtained his doctoral degree from the Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. He did post-doctoral research at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and then at the University of Virginia. Thereafter, he was heading the research and production unit of a growing biotechnology company in India. Dr. Kshitish is basically a reproductive biologist and has used molecular biology extensively in his research work. Though he is particularly interested in studying differential transcriptional regulation in reproductive vs. other systems, he has multiple research interests and enjoys flexibility in technical approaches. He has been with IBAB since March 2003. Apart from teaching and research, he is spearheading the short term courses (STCs) and the LCBT programme. More..

	Dr. Shipra Agrawal has ten years of research and teaching experience in the areas of plant biotechnology and bioinformatics. Previously she was a faculty member at the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Allahabad. Recently, as a post-doctoral fellow at the Jawaharlal Nehru Center of Advanced and Scientific Research (JNCASR) Bangalore, her research was in the area of motif based characterization of human meiotic recombination hotspots, transcriptional regulation of the human PC4 gene, computational analysis work on chromatin remodeling factors and modeling and simulation studies on mouse importin-4. In addition, she also worked on micro-RNA precursor prediction from non-coding RNA
	Dr. Andreas Bender was the lead faculty for the Postgraduate Cheminformatics Course in 2008. Dr. Bender's work comprises descriptor and classification algorithm development and evaluation, as well as applications to predict biological targets for small molecules. Andreas received his PhD from the University of Cambridge (UK) developing virtual screening methods working with Prof. Robert C. Glen at the Unilever Centre for Molecular Informatics / Department of Chemistry. He was a Cambridge Gates Scholar and a member of Darwin College while at Cambridge and is the author of more than 30 publications in the cheminformatics and bioinformatics fields and referee for several journals in the area.  Further information can be found at http://www.andreasbender.de.

	Dr. Richa Grover received her doctoral degree in Molecular and Cell Biology at the Indian Institute of Science. Richa has worked extensively on the role of critical RNA-protein interactions in translational control of cellular mRNAs especially implicated in carcinogenesis. Her research at IBAB focuses on functional screening of novel bioactive components utilizing mammalian cell lines as her model system. She uses the techniques of molecular biology, genetic engineering and cell culture in order to address her research objectives. Richa enjoys the excitement of research but tremendously appreciates teaching and interacting with students as well.
	Dr. Ashwini Mathur, adjunct faculty at IBAB, received his Ph.D. in Biostatistics from University of California, Berkeley and subsequently taught as a faculty member at University of California, San Francisco before joining GSK (US) in 1996. He headed GSK's Biometrics operations in India till 2006 and now heads the Biostatistics and Statistical Reporting operation of Novartis in India. He is a member of American Statistical Association and Secretary of International Biometrics Society. He has more than 35 medical collaborative papers in international journals, 2 book chapters and numerous invited lectures, presentations and posters at international conferences.
	Prof. Naren Ramakrishnan, who holds an adjunct appointment at IBAB, is an associate professor of computer science and faculty fellow at Virginia Tech. His research interests are in the areas of software systems for computational science, data mining, and information management, especially as they pertain to bioinformatics applications. He has contributed to the development of software systems such as Expresso and JigCell that automate tedious aspects of microarray experiment management and cell cycle modeling, respectively. His current research focus is the development of novel data mining techniques that expose important abstractions to biologists for problem solving and knowledge discovery. Ramakrishnan currently serves on the editorial board of IEEE Computer. He holds a Ph.D. in computer sciences from Purdue University in 1997. More information about his teaching and research is available at: http://people.cs.vt.edu/~naren.

Dr. Gayatri Saberwal, did her PhD in the life sciences at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad. She then did post-doctoral work at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York. She has been involved with the Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology since its establishment in 2001. Her research and teaching relates to the biotech industry, both in India and abroad. Dr. Saberwal also spearheads the entrepreneurship activities at the institute and is involved in its business incubator.

Dr. Vibin Ramakrishnan, obtained his his Ph.D from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai and did his postdoctoral work at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. Aside from his publications in theoretical and computational biology, he has been involved in the development of GeoFOLD, a tool for prdicting protien folding kinetics, mechanisam, and pathways based on topology, and IdeAS, a tool for sequence optimization that has been developed and calibrated against small and medium sized protiens. His current research intrests are in the area of protien folding design.

Dr. Shireen Vali, received her PhD in Neurobiology from University of California, Davis in 1997, where she studied the signal transduction pathway involved in the regulation of a metabolic gene in mouse. She subsequently did her post-doctoral research at Stanford University Medical School in cystic fibrosis. At Stanford she also developed various Online Continued Medical Education (CME) courses. Dr. Vali has also worked in the field of histopathology at a biotech company. She joined IBAB as a Faculty Scientist in 2003 and her research interests include the area of proteomics and studying the repertoire of multiprotein complexes involved in cellular function and signalling. She has recently started a company, Cellworks Group Inc. The company was incubated at IBAB for six months. As it has grown, it has now graduated out of the incubator to its own premises. Dr. Vali continues as an adjunct faculty at the institute.