Affiliation: The Ohio State University

I am a Post-Doctoral Researcher in Dr. Harpreet Singh’s laboratory at The Ohio State University. My graduate training was through an “Integrated PhD program” in Biological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science, India. My PhD, work was carried out under the guidance of Dr. Anjali A Karande with my thesis focused on “Mapping the functional domain of glycodelin A”. As a Post-Doctoral trainee, I am working on gaining insights on chloride intracellular channel (CLIC) proteins (non-canonical class of ion channels) in cardiac function and cardio-protection from ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injury. I have established the molecular identity of two of the mammalian paralogs, CLIC4, and CLIC5 in cardiac mitochondria and showed their differential localization to outer and inner mitochondrial membranes. My work has established CLIC5 as the first inner membrane chloride channel to be characterized at the molecular level. In 2017, I received an AHA post-doctoral fellowship to decipher the role of an alternate splice variant CLIC5B in modulating inner mitochondrial membrane localization and function. Further, we demonstrated that both CLIC4 and CLIC5 are important for maintaining mitochondrial function and cardio-protection from IR injury. Currently, I am investigating the mechanisms of how chloride homeostasis mediated by CLIC4 and CLIC5 affects the cardiac physiology and how they further play a role in mediating cardio-protection from IR injury.