Speakers

Agnik Dasgupta earned his Ph.D. in Cell and Developmental Biology from the State University of New York Upstate Medical University and Syracuse University, under the mentorship of Jeffrey Amack and Lisa Manning. He subsequently trained as a Kavli Neural Systems Institute (KNSI) Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of A. J. Hudspeth at The Rockefeller University, USA. At CHINTA (Center for High Impact Neuroscience and Translational Applications), his laboratory investigates how initially unorganised groups of neuronal cells progressively assemble into the highly elaborate connectome, using the zebrafish lateral line as a tractable in vivo model system.

Anamika Bhargava earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Medical University of Innsbruck in 2008. She then pursued postdoctoral research at the Michael Smith Laboratories, Vancouver, receiving a competitive fellowship for her work on calcium channels, before working as a Research Associate with Julia Gorelik at Imperial College London. She joined IIT Hyderabad as an Assistant Professor in 2014 and is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Biotechnology. Her research focuses on voltage-gated calcium channels, ion channel function in health and disease, channelopathies, and the use of zebrafish as a vertebrate model for drug screening and mechanistic toxicology. She has held several leadership roles at IITH, including Institute Ranking Nodal Coordinator, Convener of the Departmental Postgraduate Committee, and Secretary of the Institutional Biosafety Committee (2017–2020).

Beena Pillai pursued an integrated M.S.–Ph.D. programme in Life Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru. She joined CSIR-IGIB, New Delhi, as a postdoctoral fellow and later established her independent research programme there, rising to Chief Scientist. In 2026, she was appointed Director of the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (BRIC-RGCB), Thiruvananthapuram. Her laboratory investigates how microRNAs and long non-coding RNAs regulate gene expression networks governing neurogenesis, neuronal function, and neurological disorders, integrating genomics, molecular biology, and computational approaches. In zebrafish, her group has shown that non-coding RNAs inherited through the gametes can shape brain development in progeny. She has been recognised with the National Bioscience Award, the INSA Young Scientist Medal, and the CSIR Young Scientist Award in Biological Sciences.

Dr. Ramachandran obtained his Ph.D. in Neurobiology from the Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Otto-von-Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany (2010), where his doctoral research examined late-phase long-term potentiation (LTP) in hippocampal neurons under the guidance of Prof. Julietta Uta Frey. Prior to his doctoral studies, he completed his M.Sc. in Zoology from the University of Kerala and a Bachelor of Education in Natural Science from Mahatma Gandhi University. Before joining the University of Calicut, Dr. Ramachandran held several prestigious research positions in Europe, including appointments at the European Neuroscience Institute, Göttingen, Germany, the University of Zurich/ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and the University Hospital of Zurich. He also served as an Assistant Professor at Christ College (Autonomous), Irinjalakuda, before moving to the University of Calicut. His research interests encompass the molecular basis of memory formation, behavioral plasticity, neuropharmacology, neurotoxicity, neurodegenerative diseases, and the influence of gut microbiota on neurological disorders, particularly autism. His laboratory employs zebrafish and other experimental models to investigate neural function and disease mechanisms. His work has been supported by competitive funding from the Department of Science and Technology (DST-SERB), including projects on the role of gut microbiota in behavioral plasticity and prestigious DST-SERB ECRA and TARE Fellowship awards.

Dr. Bittu Kaveri Rajaraman is an Associate Professor of Biology and Psychology at Ashoka University. They received their Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Harvard University, followed by a DST-Kothari Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, IISc, and an INSPIRE Faculty Fellowship at the Central University of Hyderabad. Their research explores how brains generate behaviour across diverse organisms, spanning the evolution of neural and behavioural communication systems, neuroethology of temporal pattern recognition in insects, and the study of quantitative and economic cognition in zebrafish, dogs, and humans. At Ashoka University, Dr. Rajaraman leads the Neuroethology Lab, integrating neuroscience, ecology, evolution, and behaviour to understand how animals perceive, process, and respond to information in complex environments.

Dr. Patra obtained his doctoral training at the Technical University of Dresden, Germany, where he developed expertise in developmental biology, regenerative medicine, and cardiovascular research. Following his Ph.D., he carried out postdoctoral research in Germany, building an independent research portfolio centered on heart development, extracellular matrix biology, and tissue regeneration before returning to India to establish his laboratory at ARI. His laboratory investigates the genetic and molecular networks that govern cardiac morphogenesis, myocardial regeneration, angiogenesis, and tissue repair. By combining developmental biology, genetics, imaging, and functional genomics, his group seeks to understand why some vertebrates can regenerate damaged hearts and how these mechanisms can be harnessed to develop regenerative therapies for human cardiovascular diseases. The laboratory also explores the impact of environmental factors on cardiovascular health using zebrafish as a powerful vertebrate model. Dr. Patra has made significant contributions to the fields of cardiac development, extracellular matrix biology, and regenerative medicine, with work published in leading international journals on cardiac tissue engineering, heart regeneration, developmental signaling, and organ morphogenesis.

Damanpreet Singh earned his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Drug Research from Punjabi University, Patiala, and his M.Pharm from Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar. He is currently Senior Principal Scientist and Professor at CSIR-IHBT, Palampur (since 2025), having previously served as Principal Scientist and Associate Professor (2020–2025) and Senior Scientist (2017–2020). His research programme bridges natural product pharmacology and translational neuroscience, with particular emphasis on the scientific validation of traditional Himalayan medicinal herbs and the identification of novel targets for comprehensive epilepsy management. His laboratory applies zebrafish larval and adult seizure models — including PTZ-based chemical kindling — to screen candidate compounds and study mechanisms linking seizures to cardiac damage and neuroinflammation.

Deepak Kumar Sinha is a Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at IACS, Kolkata. His research integrates molecular biology, cell biology, and biophysical approaches to understand how cells sense and respond to changes in their physical and biochemical environment. Current research areas include the roles of macromolecular crowding, TNFR1 signalling, and the cytoskeleton in cellular volume homeostasis, as well as lipid droplet dynamics and actomyosin organisation during early zebrafish embryogenesis. His group uses zebrafish embryos as a powerful in vivo system to study events such as oocyte-to-embryo transition, cleavage furrow formation, and pre-immune antimicrobial defence. He received his Ph.D. from NCBS-TIFR, Bengaluru, and conducted postdoctoral research at ENS, Paris. He was awarded the Ramanujan Fellowship in 2012.

Filippo Del Bene is a Research Director at the Institut de la Vision (Sorbonne Université / INSERM). His laboratory pioneered the use of light-sheet microscopy and two-photon optogenetics to study intact neural circuits in the transparent zebrafish larva. By combining whole-brain calcium imaging with targeted single-neuron stimulation, his group has mapped circuits for visual motion detection, optic-flow processing, and sensorimotor integration. His recent work also exploits chemogenetic and intersectional strategies to dissect the contribution of specific cell types to visually guided behaviours, with implications for understanding visual disorders.

Jason Rihel is a Professor of Behavioural Genomics at UCL. His laboratory developed a landmark high-throughput behavioural platform in zebrafish larvae that enables pharmacological and genetic screening for sleep and arousal phenotypes at scale. Using this approach, his group has characterised the roles of numerous neuromodulatory systems — including the hypocretin/orexin, histamine, and adenosine pathways — in regulating zebrafish sleep architecture. More recently, his lab has turned to single-cell transcriptomics and neural circuit approaches to identify the specific neuron types that gate transitions between sleep and wakefulness, with translational relevance for sleep disorders and neuropsychiatric conditions.

Karuna Sampath is a Professor of Systems Biology at the University of Warwick. Her laboratory investigates the mechanisms by which the Nodal family of TGF-β signalling molecules pattern the early vertebrate embryo, focusing on how signal grading is achieved at the molecular level. A key interest is post-transcriptional regulation — including the roles of RNA-binding proteins, mRNA localisation, and translational control — in modulating Nodal pathway activity. Her lab's work in zebrafish has provided deep mechanistic insights into left-right asymmetry determination, mesoderm induction, and gastrulation.

Marianne Bronner is the Edward B. Lewis Professor of Biology and the Director of the Beckman Institute at Caltech. Her laboratory has made seminal contributions to understanding the gene regulatory networks (GRNs) governing neural crest specification and migration. A major focus of her current research is the role of chromatin remodelling and enhancer activity in establishing the neural crest transcriptional program. Her lab combines single-cell transcriptomics, live imaging, and CRISPR-based approaches in both zebrafish and chick embryos to dissect how neural crest progenitors acquire their remarkable multipotency and how defects in this process underlie neurocristopathies.

Mohita Malay Tagore is a Senior Research Scientist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the Sloan Kettering Institute in New York. She completed her Ph.D. at Michigan State University, studying transcription factor regulation in innate immune responses. As a postdoctoral fellow in Richard White's laboratory at MSKCC — where she received the prestigious Kravis WiSE Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2020 — she used zebrafish models to dissect cell–cell communication in melanoma. Her research has demonstrated that GABAergic signalling from keratinocytes can endow melanocytes with oncogenic competence for BRAFV600E-driven tumour initiation, and that mutations in epithelial structural networks accelerate tumour formation. She combines genetics, developmental biology, cancer biology, and advanced in vivo imaging to understand the earliest events in cancer development.

Mujahidkhan A. Pathan holds a Ph.D. in Fish Biotechnology and is a Senior Scientist (ARS) at the ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Education, Mumbai. His research interests encompass quantitative genetics, common carp and zebrafish breeding, and molecular genetics, with a focus on improving aquaculture productivity through advanced genetic approaches. He has served as principal investigator on an NFDB-funded project to establish a Zebrafish BioResource Centre in India, developing both wild and inbred zebrafish strains of national importance for standardising experimental backgrounds in biomedical and genetic research. His laboratory also applies zebrafish embryo toxicity tests to assess the genotoxicity, teratogenicity, and developmental toxicity of environmental contaminants and industrial dyes relevant to Indian aquatic environments.

Dr. Swain obtained his M.Sc. in Biotechnology from Savitribai Phule Pune University, India, and earned his Ph.D. in Developmental Biology from the Max Planck Institute for Biology and Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Germany. He subsequently carried out postdoctoral research at the University of Birmingham and the Paterson Institute for Cancer Research, University of Manchester, UK, where he investigated vascular development, angiogenesis, and Wnt signalling. He joined the Institute of Life Sciences as a Ramalingaswami Fellow before establishing his independent laboratory and progressing through the ranks to Scientist F. His laboratory investigates the genetic and molecular mechanisms that regulate kidney development, endothelial cell biology, angiogenesis, and embryonic organogenesis. Using zebrafish as a primary experimental model, his group combines genome editing technologies such as CRISPR and TALEN, transgenesis, advanced imaging, and functional genomics to understand developmental processes and generate disease models for human kidney disorders. The laboratory also develops zebrafish-based platforms for high-throughput drug screening and collaborates on projects spanning cancer biology, infectious diseases, and aquaculture. Dr. Swain has published his work in leading international journals, including Nature, The EMBO Journal, Oncogene, Journal of Clinical Oncology, FASEB Journal, Cancer Research, Cell Communication and Signalling, and International Journal of Developmental Biology.

Rajesh Ramachandran is a Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at IISER Mohali, where he joined as Assistant Professor in 2012 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2018 before becoming a full Professor. He received his Ph.D. from CCMB/Jawaharlal Nehru University and conducted postdoctoral research at CCMB and later at the University of Michigan, where he investigated retinal regeneration mechanisms. His laboratory uses zebrafish and axolotl as model systems to dissect genetic, epigenetic, and signalling pathways governing tissue repair and regeneration. A major focus is the capacity of Müller glial cells to reprogram into neural progenitors following retinal injury, with key contributions to understanding the roles of HDACs, let-7 microRNA, Oct4, Tgf-β signalling, and PTEN in controlling regenerative competence. His group also investigates how metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes impair regeneration, with implications for translational medicine.

Ravneet Kaur holds an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Zoology from Panjab University, Chandigarh, where she is an Associate Professor in the Department of Zoology. Her research expertise covers freshwater ecology, environmental biology, fish biomaterials, and the biological assessment of aquatic ecosystems, with a focus on conservation and sustainable aquaculture. She has been active in research and academic activities since 2014, contributing to zebrafish-based biological studies alongside broader investigations of aquatic biodiversity and ecosystem health. She has participated in funded research projects evaluating fish biodiversity and the ecological condition of freshwater systems, contributing to sustainable management of aquatic resources in India.

Rita Mateus leads a research group at the MPI-CBG focused on the mechanisms of organ size control and allometric scaling. Using the regenerating zebrafish fin as a tractable system, her lab has uncovered how morphogenetic signals are scaled to tissue dimensions, and how growth termination is achieved with remarkable precision. Her approaches include quantitative live imaging, biophysical modelling, and genetic perturbation, revealing how tissues sense and respond to their own size. This work has broad implications for understanding developmental robustness and regeneration.

Roberto Mayor is a Professor in the Cell and Developmental Biology department at UCL. His laboratory has been at the forefront of understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms of collective neural crest migration. A landmark contribution from his group is the discovery that contact inhibition of locomotion (CIL), coupled with co-attraction signals, drives directional collective migration — a principle that has since been extended to metastatic cancer cells. His current work uses zebrafish and Xenopus models, combined with in vitro reconstitution and computational modelling, to understand how physical and biochemical signals are integrated during migration.

Dr. Soumitra Mitra is an Assistant Professor-II in the field of Cell and Molecular Biology at the Amity Institute of Neuropsychology and Neurosciences (AINN), Amity University, Noida. His academic and research interests lie at the intersection of cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying biological and neurological processes, with a focus on advancing understanding of human health and disease. As a faculty member at AINN, Dr. Mitra contributes to both teaching and research in the life sciences, mentoring students and fostering interdisciplinary approaches to modern biological questions. His work reflects a commitment to scientific inquiry and the application of molecular biology tools to address challenges in neuroscience and biomedical research.

Dr. Nair earned her Ph.D. in Developmental Biology from the University of California, Irvine, under the mentorship of Prof. Thomas F. Schilling. She subsequently completed postdoctoral research at the University of California, Irvine, followed by the University of Wisconsin–Madison with Prof. Francisco J. Pelegri, where she expanded her expertise in zebrafish embryogenesis and developmental genetics. Before joining IIT Bombay in 2020 as an Associate Professor, Dr. Nair served as a Reader (Assistant Professor) in the Department of Biological Sciences at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, from 2012 to 2020, where she established an independent research program focused on the fundamental principles governing vertebrate embryonic development. Her research explores how embryos regulate cell size, nuclear architecture, spindle dynamics, and tissue organization during the earliest stages of life. Using advanced genetic, molecular, and imaging approaches in zebrafish, her laboratory investigates gastrulation, axis patterning, organogenesis, and the mechanisms that ensure proper development of organs such as the heart, liver, pancreas, and cerebellum.

Prof. Maitra obtained his M.Sc. in Zoology from the University of Burdwan in 1992 and earned his Ph.D. in Zoology from Visva-Bharati University in 2000, where his doctoral research focused on the endocrine regulation of reproduction. Following his Ph.D., he completed a DBT Postdoctoral Fellowship at the CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (IICB), Kolkata, gaining expertise in cellular immunology and molecular endocrinology before joining the faculty at Visva-Bharati, where he has been engaged in teaching and research since 2004 and served as Director of the Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) from 2022 to 2024. His laboratory investigates the integration and crosstalk between endocrine signalling pathways that regulate reproductive physiology, metabolic homeostasis, oxidative stress, lipid metabolism, and innate immune responses. A major focus of his research is understanding how endocrine-disrupting chemicals influence ovarian function, insulin resistance, and metabolic dysfunction. Prof. Maitra has published extensively in leading international journals in endocrinology, toxicology, reproductive biology, and molecular physiology, advancing the understanding of endocrine disruption, hormone signalling, lipid metabolism, oxidative stress, and immune regulation.

Dr. T. N. Vivek (Vivek T. Natarajan) is a Senior Principal Scientist (Scientist F) in the Integrative Biology programme at CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (CSIR-IGIB), New Delhi, and a faculty member of the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR). His research focuses on stem cell biology, regenerative medicine, developmental biology, pigment cell biology, and disease modelling. His laboratory employs diverse model systems, including zebrafish, to investigate the molecular mechanisms governing cell fate decisions, tissue regeneration, melanocyte development, and disease progression. At CSIR-IGIB, Dr. Vivek leads research on engineered cellular therapeutics, tissue regeneration strategies, and stem-cell-based interventions for human disease. His group has made significant contributions to understanding melanocyte biology and pigmentation disorders, including translational strategies for vitiligo.