MENTEE Nagendra Awasthi

Nagendra Prasad Awasthi is a PhD candidate in molecular biology and immunology at School of medicine, Deakin University. He did his under-graduation in microbiology in 2011 from Tribhuvan University, Nepal, where he studied about bacteria, fungi, virus, basic immunology, and foundation of fermentation technology and biopharmaceutics. Then, He completed Master of Science (M.Sc.) in Biotechnology in 2014 from Tribhuvan University, Nepal. In his Post-graduate, he learned theoretical and practical aspects of genetic engineering, omics, immunology, vaccine development and bio-process technology. After graduation, he got an opportunity to work as a research assistant at Center for Molecular Dynamics Nepal (CMDN) form March 2015 to October 2018. As a research assistant, his role was to perform various lab works such as nucleic acid extraction, PCR, qPCR, sequencing, and data analysis of wildlife biological samples. In addition, he assisted to establishment of animal vaccine manufacturing company called Biovac which is sister Biotech company of CMDN. In 2019, he started PhD in molecular biology and immunology. His PhD project is about to understand non-canonical role of STAT5 protein in immune regulation, growth, and metabolism. He used CRISPR-cas9 based genome editing tools to make various types of STAT5 mutants in zebrafish. He is using techniques such as Whole mount in situ hybridisation, qPCR, florescence microscopy, western blotting, low cytometry and immune-histochemistry are being used to analyse the impact of such mutants in the immune regulation and other cellular physiology.  The ultimate aim of the project is to understand how protein function differently in various situations. Such finding will be helpful for development of precise medicine. After completion of PhD, his career objective to join biotechnology/bio-pharmaceuticals industry as a scientist in Research & Development.