Mohak Sharda
I did my B.tech in Biotechnology from Jaypee University of Information Technology, Solan, Himachal Pradesh. I did my M.S in Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology from Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB), Bangalore, Karnataka. I joined the group in 2015 as a computational biologist.
Currently I am registered as a PhD student in the lab. I have secured my own funding scholarship from Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India.
PhD work:
I am interested in understanding various aspects of microbial genome evolution. One of the active areas of my research is to understand the evolution of DNA repair pathways across prokaryotes.
I have employed different computational approaches to answer these questions - including comparative- , meta- and functional- genomics along with machine learning, phylogenomics and phylogenetic comparative biostatistical methods. I have used Python and R for building various data science pipelines and bioinformatics tools. (For Publications see below)
Mentorship and collaborations:
1) Mentored and collaborated with many early stage scholars at various levels under different national research programmes like CSIR-SRTP, JNCASR-SRFP, Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) etc.
2) Taught and organised National and International workshops on Next-Generation Sequencing Genomics and Transcriptomics Data Analysis.
3) Taught (theory and practical) a course on "Genomes of Bacteria" in NCBS, Bangalore.
4) Metagenomics analysis of buccal cavity and stool samples from individuals belonging to different Ayurvedic doshas in Karanataka, in collaboration with doctors from M.S Ramaiah College, Bangalore.
5) Bulk Transcriptomic analysis to study Pseudomonas - C. elegans dynamics in collaboration with Dr. Varsha Singh, Indian Institute of Science.
Guest talks and webinars:
1) Delivered a Youtube webinar on "Comparative genomics of Bacterial Non-homologous end joining repair" in January 2021 organised by International Society for Computational Biology Student Council, Virginia, USA.
2) Delivered invited guest lecture on "Deconstructing data pipelines for Next Generation Sequencing Analysis" as a part of online series on "Faculty Development Programme on Application of Next-Generation sequencing technologies in microbial genomics" organised by Centre for Ocean Research, Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai.
3) Delivered invited guest lecture on "Microbial genomics in the era of Next Generation sequencing" as a part of online series on "Faculty Development Programme on Recent Advances in Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS)" organised by Centre for Ocean Research, Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai.
Conferences attended:
1) Oral research talk in "Biophychrom 2021: The Biology and Physics of bacterial Chromosome Organisation" organised by University of Washington, University of Birmingham, College De France, CIRB and University of Leiden.
2) Poster presentation in CCCP 2020, organised by inStem, Bangalore.
3) Oral research talk in "NCBS Annual Talks 2020"
4) Oral research talk and poster presentation in "1st IBSE International Symposium; From Genotype to Phenotype: Computational Approaches to Understand Biological Systems" organised by IIT Madras, Chennai in 2018.
5) Poster Presentation in NCBS Annual Talks in 2018.
6) Poster Presentation in inStem Annual Talks 2016 on "SNP analysis and comparative genomics implicates role of cytosine methylation in introducing consequential mutations in Vibrio cholerae genomes"
Awards and scholarships:
i) GRE, ii) TOEFL, iii) GATE, iv) DBT, v) B-Life Sciences, vi) Marine Biological Laboratory, University of Chicago scholarship for Workshop on Molecular Evolution, Woodshole, Massachusetts, 2019.
Publications:
1) Evolutionary and Comparative Analysis of Bacterial Non Homologous End Joining Repair. M Sharda, A Badrinarayanan, ASN Seshasayee. Genome Biology and Evolution, 2020.
2) Whole-genome Sequencing of Sphingobium sp. Strain RSMS, a Highly Efficient Tributyl Phosphate-Degrading Bacterium. Shyam Sunder Rangu, Ashish Beck, Mohak Sharda, Ritu Mukhopadhyaya, Aswin Sai Narain Seshasayee, Devashish Rath. Microbiology Resource Announcements, American Society for Microbiology, 2020
3) SARS-CoV2 sequence typing, evolution and signatures of selection using CoVa, a python based command line utility. Farhan Ali, Mohak Sharda, Aswin Sai Narain Seshasayee. bioRxiv, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 2020
4) High quality single amplicon sequencing method for Illumina platforms using 'N' (0-10) spacer primer pool without PhiX spike-in. M Sharda, T Naik, A Pandit. bioRxiv, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 2020
5) SNP analysis implicates role of cytosine methylation in introducing consequential mutations in Vibrio cholerae genomes. Mohak Sharda, Aswin Sai Narain Seshasayee, Supriya Khedkar. bioRxiv, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 2016
When I am not analysing data, I like to Salsa. For all other times, I love to travel, write poems and read.