Deepa Sundararajan

Deepa Sundararajan Phone: -/- Email:-18B 2nd Main Road Jagannathapuram, Velachery, Chennai – 600 042 PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY Received PhD in Molecular Genetics from University of Illinois at Chicago, USA, working in the field on Insulin Signalling. Has over 8 years of research experience in the field on Biology. Worked at a major Biotechnology tools company as a Technical Applications Scientist, as well as at a small start up, gaining valuable experience in various aspects of running a science based business. Extended expertise in Cell biology, Genetics and Molecular biology, data curation, scientific writing, project management and scientific liaison. Good research experience, logical thinking, writing skills and enthusiasm for communicating and collaborating over science. Team player experienced in working international, diverse teams. EDUCATION PG Diploma in Epidemiology (Public Health) from Public Health Foundation of India in 2017 PhD in Molecular Genetics from University of Illinois at Chicago, USA in 2009 with 3.95/4.00 M.Sc with specialization in Biomedical Genetics from University of Madras in 2001 with 87.4% B.Sc with specialization in Zoology from University of Madras in 1999 with 83.8% EDUCATION HIGHLIGHTS Established the role of protein kinase Akt in adipocyte differentiation, which led to a new direction of research in the lab. Awarded Post Graduate Research grant by Tamil Nadu State Council for Science and Technology Awarded Gold Medal for holding University first rank. WRITING/COMMUNICATION EXPERIENCE  Scientific writing and content creation in the field of oncology for a US based startup Preparing training manuals for training personnel for new projects Imparting training for new hires Writing grant proposals, web content, press releases and project proposals Awarded Post Graduate grant by the Tamil Nadu State Council For Science and Technology for conducting a short term project based on my research proposal Poster presentation at the Sigma Xi research forum, UIC Co-author of two research publications and primary author of a high impact publication Multiple research presentations at Departmental Seminars Reviewing and editing grant proposals, research articles and papers published from the lab PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE FREELANCE SCIENCE WRITER (April 2017 – present) Content creation and scientific writing in the field of genetics, molecular biology and healthcare domain SCIENTIST and PROJECT COORDINATOR (April 2011 – Sep 2014) Parthys Reverse Informatics Analytic Solutions Pvt. Ltd Review scientific literature and contribute to data curation process in the life sciences domain, including handling curation projects on promoters and other genetic sequences Analyze public and proprietary databases in the patent and biology domain to retrieve data related to client needs Manage and act as domain/ subject matter expert for all the life sciences indexing and biocuration projects in the company Work with the technical writing team for the creation of abstracts, project proposals, posters and other scientific documents Interacting with the clients, understanding their requirements and working with the Finance and Project teams to arrive at a suitable business model for various projects Help with the application process for getting the DSIR approval for the facility Coordinating with outside consultant for new business development initiatives Part of the team involved in coordinating collaborations with IIT-Madras Manage a team towards development of Neuroinformatics tool in collaboration with Tufts University, USA Domain expert for Provide guidance to the patent analytics team in the agro and biopharmaceutical space TECHNICAL APPLICATION SCIENTIST (April 2010 – Nov 2010) Invitrogen Bioservices India Pvt Ltd. Providing technical advice for Life Technologies products and services by answering client’s technical inquiries received via email. Summarize trends and technology as technical tips, Frequently Asked Questions and troubleshooting guides Mentor and supervise onsite license administrator for bioinformatics software DOCTORAL RESEARCH (2002 – 2009) Thesis: Analyzing the role of the protein kinase Akt in adipocyte differentiation Established a new experimental system in the lab to study differentiation in cell culture Used various molecular biology and cell biology techniques to establish the role of the insulin signaling pathway in adipocyte differentiation, with implications towards understanding the development of obesity and glucose intolerance in mice. MASTERS RESEARCH (2000 – 2001) Thesis: Genetics of dyslexia Reviewed the research work analyzing the genetic role of the learning disability, dyslexia Interviewed parents of children with dyslexia and collected their family history to evaluate the feasibility of carrying out a population genetics analysis of dyslexia in India PUBLICATIONS Nogueira V*, Sundararajan D*, Kwan JM*, Peng XD, Sarvepalli N, Sonenberg N, Hay N. (2012) Akt controls adipocyte differentiation through its effect on Skp2 protein expression. EMBO J. Feb 3;31(5):1134-46. Chen CC, Bhaskar PT, Nogueira V, Sundararajan D, Tonic I, Park Y, and Hay N (2009). FoxO1 inhibits mTORC1 and activates Akt by inducing the expression of Sestrin3 and Rictor. Molecular Cell, in revision. Peng XD, Xu PZ, Chen ML, Hahn-Windgassen A, Skeen J, Jacobs J, Sundararajan D, Chen WS, Crawford SE., Coleman KG, and Hay N. (2003) Genes Dev. 17,- RESEARCH TECHNIQUES AND SKILLS Cell Biology: Mammalian cell culture, isolation of primary mouse embryonic fibroblasts and brown preadipocytes, production of lentivirus and retrovirus, gene silencing using ShRNA and SiRNA, invitro differentiation, cell proliferation assays. Molecular Biology: DNA and RNA isolation, cDNA synthesis, genomic, semi quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR, cloning. Biochemistry: Protein isolation, SDS- PAGE, western blotting, immunoprecipitation, BrdU staining TRAININGS AND CONFERENCES BIRAC Workshop on Technology Transfer and Management, 2013, Bangalore Next-Generation Sequencing and Bioinformatics for Genomics & Healthcare, 2012, IITM, Chennai Advanced Intellectual Property Concepts Seminar, 2012, IITM Research Park, Chennai (Deepa Sundararajan)