Namrata Gupta

Biography:

Dr. Namrata Gupta studied Biotechnology at the Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, and graduated as MS in 2006. She then joined the research group of Prof. Anil Kumar Tripathi at the School of Biotechnology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. She worked on characterizing the role of sigma factor in abiotic stress tolerance in a soil bacterium, Azospirillum brasilense. She received her PhD degree in 2013 at the same institution. After completing her doctoral degree, she joined the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine as a Post-doctoral researcher supervised by Prof. Subhash C. Verma. The research interests of the laboratory focused on: determining the mechanisms utilized by human herpesvirus 8 (HHV8) in inducing various tumors in humans. HHV8, also called Kaposi’s sarcoma associated herpesvirus (KSHV), is an infectious agent, which establishes latent infection and causes various malignancies in immune compromised individuals. Like other herpesviruses, KSHV encodes for a nuclear protein, Latency Associated Nuclear Antigen (LANA), which is the key protein in tethering the viral genome to the host chromosome. LANA helps in replication of the viral genome and also blocks the immune pathways to hide itself from the host’s immune surveillance system. Her work focused on determining the roles of LANA in replication and the assembly of nucleosomes on the newly synthesized DNA. Her findings show that LANA recruits host cellular nucleosome assembly protein, NAP1L1 to deposit the core histones on the replicated copies of the viral genome. She also worked on how LANA suppresses host immune response to hide from the host immune system. LANA binds to the RFX complex to disrupts the assembly of transcription factors and thus down-regulates the expression of class II major histocompatibility complex (MHCII). Additionally, she worked on understanding the role of LANA in modulation of cellular signaling and persistence during primary infection. These findings were published in many Scopus/SCI peer-reviewed journals like Scientific Reports, Nature Publishing Group, Journal of Virology, Frontiers in Microbiology etc. After her postdoctoral fellowship she obtained the position of an Associate Professor at the Chandigarh University.