Amarendranath (Amar) is an Engineer by training and hails from Hyderabad, India, famous for its mouth-watering ‘Dum Biryani’. Amar completed his MS-PhD from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research-Pune, India. His PhD work identified how a Post Translational Modification called SUMOylation regulates the activity of a crucial transcription factor Jra (Jun) and regulates the Drosophila gut immune response.

Amar is a Postdoctoral Research Scientist in Ian McGough’s lab from January 2022. He is currently working to understand the changes in signalling landscape in the stem cell niche as the animal ages using the Drosophila adult intestinal stem cells as a model system. Amar’s interests lie specifically in looking at the Wnt and Hedgehog pathways and how they integrate and influence the key pathways like mTOR and insulin implicated in ageing.

Outside work, Amar enjoys travelling, watching neo-noir movies, and cooking.