Ashish Arora

Background

About Ashish Arora

I have done MSc in Organic Chemistry from University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, in 1990, securing Gold Medal. I obtained PhD in Biotechnology in 1996 from Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh, where I worked under the supervision of Dr. C. M. Gupta. My work involved total synthesis of phosphocholine lipids based on 1,2 4-butanetriol backbone and their biophysical characterization. I worked Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Goettingen, Germany, from 1996 to 1998. My work involved Electron Spin Resonance studies on Na,K-ATPase and phospholamban. From 1998 till 2002, I worked as Assistant Professor of Research at the Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics, Univeristy of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA. My work was focused on characterization of the channel properties of E. coli outer membrane protein A transmembrane domain and determination of solution structure of OmpA-TM domain-micelle complex. This work was published in Nature Structural Biology in 2001 and is considered pioneering work with more than 500 citations. I joined as Senior Scientist, Biochemisty and Structural Biology division, CSIR-Central Drug Research Instiute, Lucknow, India, in May 2022. I established the NMR facility for macromolecular structure, consisting of a 600 MHz NMR spectrometer equipped with a triple nuclear cold probe. I targeted and screened more than 50 protein candidates from Mycobacterium, ESKAKE pathogens, and parasites. We have determined and published structures of 10 proteins using NMR spectroscopy and another 10 proteins by using X-ray crystallography. In addition to the main theme, we have carried out Immunological characterization of about a dozen secreted and cytoplasmic antigens of M. tuberculosis H37Rv including ESAT-6, CFP-10, Rv1813, Ag85c etc. We are structurally and functionally characterizing the Phenolic acid decarboxylase repressor (PadR) family of transcription factors of M. tuberculosis H37Rv. Specialization: Protein NMR spectroscopy and structural Biology. Drug discovery using NMR-based screening. ITC, DSC, RT-PCR, HPLC with fluorescence detection. Protein crystallization and crystal structure determination. Multiple sequence analysis of genomes of different SARS-COV-2 variants. Click Chemistry synthesis of TaqMan like probes and fluorescent tRNA probes. Our areas of interest are structural biology applications to tackle Anti-microbial resistance and development of a subunit vaccine against Tuberculosis.