Dr. Suneel Narayanavari Research Scientist with expertise spanning from infection biology to transposon biology.
Biography
Suneel Narayanavari is an international interdisciplinary research scientist with expertise spanning from infection biology to transposon biology. During his PhD he focused on characterization of virulence factors (sphingomyelinases) in pathogenic Leptospira spp. He predicted the structure of Sph2 protein using in silico homology modeling and characterized that Sph2 (sphingomyelinase 2) is a Mg(++)-dependent hemolysin with both sphingomyelinase and hemolytic activities. He also studied the influence of different environmental factors on the expression of leptospiral sphingomyelinases as pathogenic Leptospira are likely to encounter various in vivo-like conditions within the mammalian host such as exposure to serum, high osmolarity, iron limitation, and increase in temperature. In addition, he examined the regulation of sph2 and its relationship to hemolytic and sphingomyelinase activities produced by several pathogenic Leptospira interrogans strains cultivated under the osmotic conditions found in the mammalian host. His studies indicated that the sph2 gene product contributes to the hemolytic and sphingomyelinase activities secreted by Leptospira interrogans and most likely dominates those functions under the culture condition tested.
In his postdoctoral research he focused on identifying the role of host factors & DNA repair pathways in regulating Sleeping Beauty (SB) transposition in different phases of cell cycle. He identified the hostprotein interaction partners of SB transposase protein using SILAC based proteomics. Dr. Suneel Narayanavari is also involved in other interesting projects like developing and optimizing methods for cell & gene therapy applications.
Research Interest
Drug discovery and development; host-transposon interactions and cell & gene therapy approaches for personalized medicine.