Research Interests
With a professional degree in Microbiology from Pune, the cultural capital of India, I stepped into the United States in 2005, to realize my passion for infectious disease. For my doctoral and my previous post-doctoral work, as a “Molecular parasitologist”, I aimed at developing an experimental challenge for vaccine development towards malaria. With my experience in gene expression, DNA recombination, replication, damage and repairs I came to Duke to continue my research on infectious diseases by looking at various aspects at a molecular, biochemical and immunological level. Lack of convenient genetic tools has hampered the identification of Chlamydia virulence molecules. My present study in the Valdivia lab involves developing and optimizing genetic tools in Chlamydia to investigate how these virulence molecules are regulated to cause pathology.