Dr. Nitin Gupta graduated from IIT Kanpur in 2004 with a B.Tech. in computer science and an interest in biology. He then joined the PhD program in bioinformatics and systems biology at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). After completing his PhD in 2009, he spent a few months in a cognitive neuroscience lab at UCSD, and then moved to the National Institutes of Health as a post-doc to learn electrophysiology. He joined the BSBE faculty in July, 2014.

The remarkable capabilities organized by the brain — from seeing to singing, from remembering to running — originate in the electrical activities of neurons. Neurons interact with each other forming circuits, which process sensory information and drive appropriate behaviors. We are broadly interested in understanding how these circuits encode innate behavioral preferences. We use the insect olfactory system (sense of smell) as a model system as it is amenable to detailed in vivo experiments and at the same complex enough to provide insights into our own brains. Our initial focus is on understanding the brain mechanisms that govern how specific smells become attractive or repulsive to insects. In particular, we are examining the neural responses in the brain of a mosquito when it detects the attractive odor of a human or the repulsive odor of a repellent cream. We use a variety of techniques, including in vivo electrophysiology, histology, behavioral observations, genetic manipulations, and computational modeling. We are also studying how neural circuits control similarities and differences across individuals of the same species.

In a different and applied project, we are working on automated digital interventions for mental health. We have developed a cognitive behavioral therapy tool called TreadWill for depression.

Dr. Nitin Mohan did his Masters in Physics from Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala and received his PhD in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology from Academia Sinica, Taiwan. He then pursued post-doctoral research at Ecole Normale Superieur-Cachan, France and ICFO- The Institute of Photonic Sciences, Barcelona, Spain. Prior to joining IIT Kanpur in December 2018, he was a post-doctoral research fellow at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.

The Dr. Nitin Mohan’s research interest is to visualize and understand how small biomolecules work in coordination with one another to perform vital functions that are a requisite for life. A quantitative grasp of the spatial and temporal orchestration of these molecular interactions and their organization to form functional nano-complexes could provide insights on how these biological processes are regulated for healthy functioning and what goes wrong in diseases. To this end, we develop advanced super-resolution STORM/PALM imaging methods with an edge over conventional optical microscopy in visualizing and quantifying nanoscopic molecular organization and dynamics. The specific biological questions we are trying to address are 1) regulations of intracellular transport by microtubule modifications and motor protein organization, 2) probing lysosome-mTORC1 interactions in response to nutrient signaling, and the implications of these processes in neurodegenerative disorders and lysosomal storage diseases. In parallel, advancement in optical engineering for developing fast and live high-resolution imaging and software development for image and data analysis is also being pursued. 

The other area of interest to the lab is to develop fluorescent nanodiamonds(FNDs) as a probe for long-term in-vivo tracking and drug delivery applications. Novel approaches to bio-functionalize the surface of FND to enhance specificity in targeting and treatment of cancer is the goal. Also, the possibilities of using FND functionalized with viral and pathogenic proteins as surrogates to track how they evade endo-lysosomal pathways will also be explored.