MENTEE – Riti Mann

Dr Riti Mann is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the iThree Institute, University of Technology Sydney (UTS); performing research at the interface of nanotechnology and microbiology. Her research focuses on understanding the mechanism of nanosilver (silver nanoparticles) resistance in planktonic cells as well as the biofilms of gram-negative (Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii) and gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus) bacteria.

She was awarded her PhD degree in Molecular Microbiology in 2019 at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. Her PhD work in the lab of Prof Liz Harry explored the mechanistic insights of the link between central carbon metabolism and cell division in Bacillus subtilis. She demonstrated the importance of one specific metabolite of the glycolysis pathway – pyruvate, in maintaining the coordination between the cellular events of division, metabolism and DNA replication; which hypothesized that pyruvate might be acting as a signalling molecule to synchronize cell cycle events with the nutrient availability.

Before starting her PhD at UTS, Dr Mann worked as a voluntary Research assistant, optimizing the freeze-thaw based genomic DNA isolation protocol for the malarial parasite Plasmodium, in the lab of Dr Anup Anvikar (National Institute of Malaria Research, Indian Council of Medical Research, Delhi, India). Dr Mann obtained her Bachelors of Science in Microbiology (Honours Class I, University of Delhi, India) in 2012, before receiving her Masters of Science in Microbiology degree (The University Gold medal, University of Delhi, India) in 2014. Her Masters dissertation in the lab of Prof Swati Saha (University of Delhi South Campus, India) involved the cloning and expression of mutated Replication protein A gene in the parasite Leishmania donovani.