Kunchithapadam SWAMINATHAN

May 2013
Kunchithapadam SWAMINATHAN, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
National University of Singapore
Singapore 117543
Phone: +65 6516 7932
Fax: +65 6779 2486
Email: dbsks@nus.edu.sg
Website: Swami_DBS/NUS_webpage
Nationality
USA
Education
7/1978 – 5/1981 B.Sc. (Physics with distinction) Madras Univ., India
8/1981 – 6/1983 M.Sc. (Physics with distinction) Madras Univ., India
1/1984–11/1989 Ph.D. in Crystallography - Indian Inst. of Technology, Bombay, India
Post-doctoral training
11/1989 – 5/1995 Department of Chemistry, Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA (with
Prof. Donald Voet, the author of the famous Voet & Voet Biochemistry
textbook)
5/1995 – 12/1997 The Wistar Institute, Philadelphia, USA (with Prof. Ronen Marmorstein)
Faculty appointments
1/1998 – 12/2000 Senior Scientist (= Assistant Professor), Former Institute of Molecular
Agrobiology (current Temasek Lifesciences Laboratory), Singapore
1/2001 – 6/2005 Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, National
University of Singapore and Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology,
Singapore
7/2005 – 10/2007 Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, National
University of Singapore and Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology,
Singapore
11/2007 – present Associate professor, Department of Biological Sciences, National
University of Singapore
Training attachments
1/2005 One month training on cryo-electron microscopy with Prof. Jack Johnson,
The Scripps Research Institute, San Diego, USA
1/2006 – 3/2006 Collaboration and training on Wnt signaling proteins with Prof. Sarah
Millar, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
5/2007 – 8/2008 10 months sabbatical with Prof. Mariusz Wasik, University of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
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6/2011 – 8/2011 2 months attachment with Prof. Werner Nau, Jacobs University, Germany
under DAAD fellowship.
12/2011 – 3/2013 10 months sabbatical with Prof. Ramin Shiekhattar, The Wistar Institute,
Philadelphia, USA
Awards and honors
2013 University Academic Teaching Excellence Award – Winner
2013 University Outstanding Educator Award – nominated
2013 University Teaching Academy membership - nominated
2012 Faculty Teaching Excellence Award - winner
2011 Faculty Teaching Excellence Award - winner
2011 University Academic Teaching Excellence Award – nominated
2011 Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD – German Academic
Exchange Program) fellowship for short-term attachment in Jacobs University,
Bremen, Germany
2011 Singapore Science Congress 2011 Poster Award
2010 Faculty Teaching Excellence Award - winner
2010 University Teaching Excellence Award - nominated
2010 University Scholars Program undergrad teaching excellence incentive award
2007 Singapore Science and Engineering Fair 2007 Silver medal
Current research interest
Cell signaling, gene regulation/silencing and non-coding RNA in development and human
diseases (cancer, including lymphoma, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal
lobar dementia)
Research publications
Swaminathan, K., Chatterjee, C., Patel, R.P., Padmanabhan, V.M. and Sinha, U.C. (1988).
Crystal structure of 2,2' bipyridyl [N-(o-carboxyphenyl)iminodiacetato] Cr(III) trihydrate,
Acta Cryst., C44, 447.
Swaminathan, K., Bhatt, R.K., Sabata, B.K. and Sinha, U.C. (1988). Crystal structure of a
new diterpenoid furanolactone from Tinospora cordifolia miers. Acta Cryst., C44, 1421.
Swaminathan, K. (1989). SWATAB - a program to obtain required tables for publication
from SHELX76 final output. J. Applied Cryst., 22, 184.
Swaminathan, K., Chatterjee, C., Yadava, V.S., Padmanabhan, V.M. and Sinha, U.C. (1989).
Crystal structure of diaquo [N-(o-carboxyphenyl)iminodiacetato] Cr(III) trihydrate. Acta
Cryst., C45, 21.
Swaminathan, K., Bhatt, R.K., Sabata, B.K., Tavale, S.S. and Sinha, U.C. (1989). Crystal
structure of Tinosporide, a diterpenoid furanolactone from Tinospora cordifolia miers.
Acta Cryst., C45, 134.
Swaminathan, K., Ramakumar, S., Bhatt, R.K., Sabata, B.K. and Sinha, U.C. (1989). Crystal
structure of Columbin, a diterpenoid furanolactone from Tinospora cordifolia miers. Acta
Cryst., C45, 300.
Swaminathan, K., Kamat, M.B., Talwar, S.S., Bohra, R. and Sinha, U.C. (1989). Crystal
structure of 1,4-bis(2-pyridyl)-1,3-butadiyne. Acta Cryst., C45, 504.
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Swaminathan, K., Chatterjee, C., Phulambrikar, A., Padmanabhan, V.M., Bohra, R. and
Sinha, U.C. (1989). Crystal structure of trimethylenediamine nitrilotriacetato Co(III)
monohydrate. Acta Cryst., C45, 566.
Swaminathan, K., Phulambrikar, A., Chatterjee, C. and Sinha, U.C. (1991). Crystal structure
of N-(o-Carboxyphenyl)iminodiacetic acid. Acta Cryst., C47, 119.
Swaminathan, K., Carroll, P.J., Kochurani, Singh, H.B. and Bhargava, H.D. (1993). Structure
of trimethyltelluronium bis(4,5-dimercapto-1,3-dithiole-2- thionato) aurate(III). Acta
Cryst., C49, 1243.
Swaminathan, K., Carroll, P.J., Singh, J.D. and Singh, H.B. (1994). Structure of
Bis(methylethylenedithio) tetrathiafulvalene. Acta Cryst., C50, 1958.
Swaminathan, K., Flynn, P., Reece, R.J. and Marmorstein, R. (1997). Crystal structure of a
PUT3-DNA complex reveals a novel mechanism for DNA recognition by a protein
containing a Zn 2 Cys 6 binuclear cluster. Nat. Struc. Biol. 4, 751-759.
Venkataramani, R., Swaminathan, K. and Marmorstein, R. (1998). Crystal structure of the
CDK4/6 inhibitory protein p18 INK4c provides Insights into ankyrin-like repeat
structure/function and tumor derived p16 INK4 mutations. Nat. Struc. Biol. 5, 74-81.
Li, N., Patel, B.K., Mijts, B.N. and Swaminathan, K. (2002). Crystallization of an alphaamylase,
AmyA, from the thermophilic halophile Halothermothrix orenii. Acta Cryst.,
D58, 2125-2126.
Li, N., Zhang, D.H., Zhang, L.H. and Swaminathan, K. (2003). Expression, crystallization
and preliminary X-ray analysis of isomaltulose synthase (PalI) from Klebsiella sp. LX3.
Acta Cryst., D59, 150-151.
Zhang, D.H., Li, N., Swaminathan, K. and Zhang, L.H. (2003). A motif rich in charged
residues determines product specificity in isomaltulose synthase. FEBS Lett., 534, 151-
155.
Yuan, P., Jedd, G., Kumaran, D., Swaminathan, S., Shio, H., Hewitt, D. Chua, N-H.and
Swaminathan, K. (2003). A HEX-1 crystal lattice required for Woronin body function in
Neurospora crassa. Nat. Struc. Biol. 10, 264-270.
Zhang, D-H., Li, N., Lok, S-M., Zhang, L-H. and Swaminathan, K. (2003). Isomaltulose
synthase (PalI) of Klebsiella sp. LX3: crystal structure and implication of mechanism. J.
Biol. Chem., 278, 35428-35434.
Tan, T-C., Yien, Y-Y., Patel, B.K., Mijts, B.N. and Swaminathan, K. (2003). Crystallization
of a novel -amylase, AmyB, from the thermophilic halophile Halothermothrix orenii.
Acta Cryst., D59, 2257-2258.
Saxena, S., Yuan, P., Dhar, S.K., Senga, T., Takeda, D., Robinson, H., Kornbluth, S., Dutta,
A.* and Swaminathan, K.* (2004). A dimerized coiled-coil domain and an adjoining part
of geminin interact with two sites on Cdt1 for replication inhibition. Mol. Cell, 15, 245-
258.
Gopalan, G., He, Z., Balmer, Y., Romano, P., Gupta, R., Heroux, A., Buchanan, B.B., Luan,
S.* and Swaminathan, K.* (2004). Structural analysis uncovers a role for redox in
regulating FKBP13, an immunophilin of the chloroplast thylakoid lumen. Proc Natl
Acad Sci., 101, 13945-13950.
Lok, S.M., Rong, G., Rouault, M., Lambeau, G., Gopalakrishnakone, P. and Swaminathan,
K. (2005). Structure and function comparison of Micropechis ikaheka snake venom
phospholipase A 2 isoenzymes. FEBS J., 272, 1211-1220.
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Huynh, F., Tan, T.C., Swaminathan, K.* and Patel, B.K.C.* (2005). Expression, purification
and preliminary crystallographic analysis of sucrose phosphate synthase (SPS) from
Halothermothrix orenii. Acta Cryst. F61, 116-117.
Vasudevan, D., Gopalan, G., He, Z., Luan, S. and Swaminathan, K. (2005). Expression,
purification, crystallization and preliminary X-ray diffraction analysis of Arabidopsis
thaliana cyclophilin 38 (AtCyp38). Acta Cryst. F61, 1087-1089.
Sivakumar N., Li, N., Tang, J.W., Patel, B.K. and Swaminathan, K. (2006). Crystal structure
of AmyA lacks acidic surface and provide insights into protein stability at poly-extreme
condition. FEBS Lett, 580, 2646-2652.
Gopalan, G., He, Z., Battaile, K.P., Luan, S. and Swaminathan, K. (2006). Structural
comparison of oxidized and reduced FKBP13 from Arabidopsis thaliana. Proteins, 65,
789-795.
Gopalan, G., Chopra, S., Ranganathan, A. and Swaminathan, K. (2006). Crystal structure of
uncleaved L-aspartate-alpha-decarboxylase from Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Proteins,
65, 796-802.
Balakrishna, A.M., Tan, Y.Y., Mok, H.Y., Saxena, A.M. and Swaminathan K. (2006).
Crystallization and preliminary X-ray diffraction analysis of Salmonella typhi PilS. Acta
Cryst. F62, 1024-1026.
Gopalan, G., Thwin, M.M., Gopalakrishnakone, P. and Swaminathan, K. (2007). Structural
and pharmacological comparison of Daboiatoxin from Daboia russelli siamensis with
viperotoxin F and vipoxin from other viper snakes. Acta Cryst. D63, 722-729.
Tan, T-C., Mijts, B.N., Swaminathan, K., Patel, P.K.C. and Divne, C. (2008). Crystal
structure of the polyextremophilic α-amylase AmyB from Halothermothrix orenii: details
of a productive enzyme-substrate complex and an N domain with a role in binding raw
starch. J. Mol. Biol. 378, 852-870.
Balakrishna, A.M., Saxena, A.M,, Mok, H.Y. and Swaminathan, K. (2009). Structural basis
of typhoid: Salmonella typhi type IVb pilin (PilS) and cystic fibrosis transmembrane
conductance regulator interaction. Proteins, 77, 253-261.
Zhang, Q., Wang, H.Y., Bhutani, G., Liu, X., Paessler, M., Tobias, J.W., Baldwin, D.,
Swaminathan, K., Milone, M.C. and Wasik M.A. (2009). Lack of TNFalpha expression
protects anaplastic lymphoma kinase-positive T-cell lymphoma (ALK+ TCL) cells from
apoptosis. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 106, 15843-15848.
Pal, K., Kumar, S., Sharma, S., Garg, S.K., Alam, M.S. Xu, H.E., Agrawal, P. and
Swaminathan, K. (2010). Crystal structure of full length mycobacterium tuberculosis
H37Rv glycogen branching enzyme: insights of N-terminal β-sandwich in substrate
specificity and enzymatic activity. J. Biol. Chem., 285, 20897-20903.
Pal, K., Swaminathan, K.*, Xu, H.E.* and Pioszak, A.* (2010). Structural basis for hormone
recognition by the human CRFR2alpha G protein-coupled receptor. J. Biol. Chem., 285,
40351-40361.
Giri, P.K., Tang, X., Thangamani, S., Shenoy, R.T., Ding, J.L.*, Swaminathan, K.* and
Sivaraman, J.* (2010). Modifying the substrate specificity of Carcinoscorpius
rotundicauda serine protease inhibitor domain 1 to target thrombin. PLOS One, 5,
e15258.
Badireddy, S., Gao, Y., Ritchie, M., Akamine, P., Wu, J., Kim, C.W., Taylor, S.S.,
Swaminathan, K.* and Anand, G.S.* (2011). Cyclic AMP analog blocks kinase
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activation by stabilizing inactive conformation: Conformational selection highlights a
new concept in allosteric inhibitor design. Mol. Cell. Proteomics, 10:M110.004390.
Tewary, S.K., Oda, T., Kendall, A., Bian, W., Stubbs, G., Wong, S.M.* and Swaminathan,
K.* (2011). Structure of Hibiscus latent Singapore virus by X-ray fiber diffraction: a
non-conserved His122 contributes to coat protein stability. J. Mol. Biol., 406, 516-
526.
Kumar, S., Pioszak, A., Xu, H.E.* and Swaminathan, K.* (2011). Crystal structure of
the Pac1R extra-cellular domain unifies a consensus fold for hormone recognition by
Class B G-protein coupled receptors. PLOS One, 6, e19682.
Liu, F., Xiong, J., Kumar, S., Yang, C., Ge, S., Li, S., Xia, N.* and Swaminathan, K.*
(2011). Structural and biophysical characterization of Mycobacterium tuberculosis
dodecin Rv1498A. J. Struc. Biol. 175, 31-38.
Koh, C.Y., Kumar, S., Kazimirova, M., Nuttall, P.A., Radhakrishnan, U.P., Kim, S.,
Jagadeeswaran, P., Imamura, T., Mizuguchi, J., Iwanaga, S., Swaminathan, K.* and Kini,
R.M.* (2011). Crystal structure of thrombin in complex with S-variegin: insights of a
novel mechanism of inhibition and design of tunable thrombin inhibitors. PLOS One, 6,
e26367.
Swaminathan, K. (2012). Frequency distribution of the reduced unit cells of centred
lattices from the Protein Data Bank. Acta crystallographica, A68, 295-297.
Hotta, K., Chen, X., Paton, R.S., Minami, A.H., Swaminathan, K., Mathews, I., Watanabe,
K., Oikawa, H., Houk, K.N. and Kim, C-Y. (2012). Enzymatic catalysis of anti-Baldwin
ring-closure reaction in polyether biosynthesis. Nature, 483, 355-358.
Tollefsena, S., Hotta, K., Chen, X., Simonsen, B., Swaminathan, K., Mathews, I., Sollida,
L.M., Kim, C.Y. (2012). Structural and functional studies of trans-encoded HLA-DQ2.3
(DQA1*03:01/DQB1*02:01) protein molecule.. J. Biol. Chem, 287, 13611-13619.
Sharma, R., Kothapalli, R., Van Dongen, A.M.J. and Swaminathan, K. (2012).
Chemoinformatic identification of novel inhibitors against Mycobacterium tuberculosis
L-aspartate α-decarboxylase. PLOS One, 7, e33521.
Vasudevan, D., Fu, A., Luan, S. and Swaminathan, K. (2012). Crystal Structure of
Arabidopsis Cyclophilin38 Reveals a Previously Uncharacterized Immunophilin
Fold and a Possible Autoinhibitory Mechanism. Plant Cell, 24, 2666-2674.
Giri, P.K., Fan, J.S., Shanmugam, M.K., Ding, J.L., Sethi, G., Swaminathan, K.* and
Sivaraman, J.* (2012). NMR structure of Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda thioredoxin
related protein 16 and its role in regulating transcription factor NF-kB activity. J. Biol.
Chem, 287, 29417-29428.
Kumar, S., Badireddy, S., Pal, K., Sharma, S., Garg, S.K., Alam, M.S., Agrawal, P., Anand,
G.S. and Swaminathan, K. (2012). Interaction of Mycobacterium tuberculosis RshA and
SigH is mediated by salt bridges. PLoS One, 7, e43676.
Sharma, R., Florea, M., Nau, W.M. and Swaminathan, K. (2012). Validation of Drug-Like
Inhibitors against Mycobacterium Tuberculosis L-aspartate α-decarboxylase Using
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (1H NMR). PLoS One, 7:e45947.
Jobichen, C., Pal, K. and Swaminathan, K. (2012). Crystal structure of mouse RhoA:GTPγS
complex in a centered lattice. J Struct Funct Genomics. 3:241-5.
Shahul Hameed, U.F., Lim, J.W., Zhang, Q., Wasik, M.A., Yang, D. and Swaminathan, K.
(2013, submitetd). Transcriptional Repressor Domain of MBD1is intrinsically disordered
and interacts specifically with co-repressors.
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Shahul Hameed, U.F., Jobichen, C., and Swaminathan, K. (2013, to be submitted soon).
Crystal structure of MidA, a mitochondrial methyl transferase and an interaction model
with its substrate NDufS2.
Kothapalli, R., Siveen, K.S., Thierry, J-P., Chong, Y.S., Biswas, A., Sethi, G., Premkumar,
A. and Swaminathan, K. (2013, to be submitted soon). Inhibition of the MMP-13
hemopexin domain is a potential therapeutic strategy in colon and breast cancer.
Deepthi, A., Lescar, J. and Swaminathan, K. (2013, to be submitted soon). Crystal structure
of diguanylate cyclase from Thermotoga maritime.
Invited lectures
May 1998
Nov 1998
Nov 1999
Oct 2000
May 2001
Sep 2001
Feb 2002
Jul 2003
Aug 2003
Aug 2003
Nov 2003
Jun 2004
Jul 2004
Sep 2005
Jan 2006
Sep 2006
Dec 2006*
Feb 2007
Dec 2007
Nov 2008
Sep 2009
Sep 2009
Jan 2010
Oct 2010
Nov 2010
Nov 2010
Nov 2010
Nov 2010
Dec 2010
Dec 2010
Feb 2011
Apr 2011 *#
May 2011
July 2011
CNRS bilateral symposium, Roscoff, France
Singapore Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
CNRS bilateral symposium, Singapore
CNRS bilateral symposium, Nice, France
China biotechnology symposium, Shanghai, China
Tsinghua – Xiamen trilateral symposium, Beijing, China
Intl. Symp. on post-genomic biotech., IIT, Kharagpur, India
American Crystallography Association, Cincinnati, USA
Intl. Symp. on enzyme technology, Bangkok, Thailand
European Crystallography Meeting, Durban, South Africa
IBM Watson Research Center, Yorktown, NY, USA
Center for Cell & Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, India
Genome Institute of Singapore, Singapore
Science Center, Singapore
International macromolecular Conference, Madras Univ., Chennai
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
4 th International Structural Biology Conference, Singapore
11 th ADNAT, Center for Cell and Mol. Biology, Hyderabad, India
3 rd India-Singapore bilateral symposium, Singapore.
4 th India-Singapore bilateral symposium, Chennai, India.
ICGEB, New Delhi, India
IMTECH, Chandigarh, India
International macromolecular Conference, Madras University, India
University Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia
Asian Crystallographic Association, Busan, Korea
Gyeongsang National University, Jinju, Korea
Intl. Conf. on Education, Research and Innovation, Madrid, Spain.
Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), Madrid, Spain.
Bharatidasan University, Tiruchirapalli, India.
King Abdullah Univ. Science and Technology, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia.
International Symposium on Challenges in Drug Discovery Program,
Mysore Open University, Mysore, India.
2nd Symposium on Enzymes & Biocatalysis-2011, Dalian, China
American Crystallographic Association annual meeting, New Orleans,
USA.
Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany
6

July 2011
July 2011
Aug 2011 *#
Aug 2011
Sep 2011
Sep 2011
Sep 2011
Nov 2012
Nov 2012
Feb 2013
Apr 2013
Institute of Biochemistry, University of Lubeck, Germany
Max-Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, Berlin Germany
Defense Science Research Conference 2011, Singapore
Kyushu University, Japan (bilateral symposium)
Purdue University, USA (hosted by Prof. Michael Rossmann).
Chinese University of Hong Kong
Molecular Biophysics Unit, Indian Institute of Science, India
National Tsinghua University, Taiwan
Academia Scinica, Taiwan
American Biophysical Society meeting, Philadelphia, USA
3rd Symposium on Enzymes & Biocatalysis-2013, Nanjing, China
@ Plenary / keynote speaker
* Scientific committee
# Session chair
Past / active (in bold) funding support
Structural and functional analysis of the Polymerase domain of Bst DNA pol I using
molecular cloning & X-ray crystallography. Faculty Research Committee, NUS - S$
32,400, May 2000, 4 years
Structural Studies of blood coagulation protein FactorVIII and PIP (PLA 2 inhibitory protein).
Academic Research Committee, NUS, S$ 84,000, July 2001, 3 years
Characterization of the DNA topoisomerase I gene from Bacillus stearothermophilus.
Faculty Research Committee, NUS, S$ 35,700, Aug 2001, 3 years.
Crystallographic studies of AP-1 family proteins and histone modifying proteins, involved in
carcinogenesis. Faculty Research Committee, NUS, S$ 77,055, May 1, 2002, 3 years
Crystal structure and functional analysis of hSuv39 and Kryptonite: histone lysinemethyl
transferase proteins involved in tumorigenesis. Faculty Research Committee, NUS, S$
94,850, Jul 1, 2003, 3 years
Crystal structure determination of WNT signaling pathway proteins involved in the
development of skin appendages. Faculty Research Committee, NUS, S$ 105,967, Jul 1,
2006, 3 years
Crystal structure determination and functional characterization of two oncogenic kinases,
NPM/ALK and Brk, involved in malignant transformation of T and B lymphocytes in
lymphoma. Biomedical Research Council, S$ 210,498, Jan 1, 2008, 2 years 4 months.
Structural and Functional Characterization of Wildtype and Three Alternatively Spliced
Forms of the Foxp3 Protein, the key Transcription Factor Involved in Lymphoma.
Biomedical Research Council, S$ 450,436, Jan 1, 2009, 3.5 years.
Structure determination of Hibiscus Latent Singapore Virus (HLSV) by X-ray fiber
diffraction, AcRF Tier-1, FRC, S$ 103,136, Jun 1, 2009, 3.5 years.
Molecular and structural characterization of the desalination mechanisms in euryhaline fish
for the mimicry of seawater desalination. Environment and Water Industry Development
Council (EWI), Co-PI. S$ 1,844,750, Nov 1, 2010, 4 years.
Effects of calcium on stability and self-assembly of Hibiscus chlorotic ringspot virus
(HCRSV) coat protein. AcRF Tier-1, FRC, S$ 106,500, Apr 1, 2011, 3 years.
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Study the mechanisms underlying the pro-survival effect of Bcl-2-Rac1 interaction in cancer
cells and primary tissue from clinical lymphomas and to elucidate the role of STAT3 in
this signaling network. NMRC, Co-PI, S$ 1,324,000, Jul 1, 2012, 3 years.
Drug development against Mycobacterium tuberculosis L aspartate a-decarboxylase. AcRF
Tier-1, FRC, S$ 139,500, Nov 1, 2012, 3 years.
Patents:
Method of Modifying Serine Protease Inhibitors, Manjunatha R. Kini et al. The U.K., Filed:
May 6, 2009.
Method of treatment (of blood coagulation disorders), Manjunatha R. Kini et al. USA, Filed:
May 6, 2009.
Research personnel trained, present and past
Ms. Angelina Tan
Ph.D. (NGS) Aug 2008 – present
Ms. Angeline Deepthi Ph.D. Aug 2009 – present
Mr. Jonathan Lee Houjin
Ph.D. (NGS) Jan 2010 – present
Ms. Madhuri Sridhara Murthy Ph.D. Aug 2010 – present
Ms. Pavithra Singaravelu Ph.D. Aug 2010 – present
Ms. Anupriya Gopalaswamy Ph.D. Sep 2010 – present
Ms. Yongqian Zhao
Ph.D. (NGS) Sep 2011 – present
Ms. Divya Narasimhan Ph.D. Jan 2012 – present
Ms. Chao Wu
Ph.D. (NGS) Aug 2012 - present
Dr. Avtar Singh Post-doc Nov 1998 – Sep 2000
No contact
Dr. Hemamalini Madukar Post-doc Jun 2006 – Oct 2007
At present Post-Doc at University Sains Malaya, Penang
Dr. Fengxia Liu Post-doc Aug 2008 – Jun 2011
Ms. Biserka Prugovecki Ph.D. Mar – Sep 1998
No contact. Left for health reasons.
Ms. Ping Yuan Ph.D. Dec 1998 – June 2004
Post-doc at Princeton University, Genome Institute of Singapore; at present Assistant
Professor, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Ms. Shee-Mei Lok Ph.D. Mar 1999 – June 2004
Post-doc at Purdue University; at present Assistant Professor, Duke-NUS Medical
School, Singapore
Mr. Neelamegam Sivakumar Ph.D. Nov 2000 – April 2006
Research Scientist at Invitrogen; at present Research Scientist at King Abdullah
University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia.
Ms. Asha Balakrishna Ph.D. Aug 2001 – Aug 2006
At present post-doc at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Ms. Gayathri Gopalan Ph.D. Aug 2001 – Aug 2005
Post-doc at Arizona State University, Tempe, USA; University of Southern California,
Los Angeles, USA; at present Research Scientist at Thrombosis Research Institute,
Bangalore India.
Mr. Tien-Chye Tan Ph.D. Feb 2002 – Dec 2005
8

Post-doc at KTH Biotechnology, Sweden; at present postdoc at Karolinska Institute,
Sweden.
Mr. Dileep Vasudevan Ph.D. Mar 2002 – Dec 2005
Post-doc at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Scientist at Novartis, Singapore.
At present Scientist, Institute of Life Sciences, Bubhaneswar, India.
Ms. Shalini Nag Ph.D. Aug 2002 – Aug 2010
At present post-doc at Yale University, USA.
Mr. Cho-Yeow Kho Ph.D. Aug 2005 – Aug 2009
At present post-doc at Univ. Washington, Seattle, USA.
Mr. Shiva Kumar Ph.D. Aug 2006 – Aug 2010
At present post-doc at Univ. Washington, Seattle, USA.
Mr. Kuntal Pal Ph.D. Aug 2006 – Aug 2010
At present post-doc at Van Andel Institute, Grand Rapids, USA.
Mr. Sunil Kumar Tewary Ph.D. Aug 2006 – Aug 2010
At present post-doc at University of Kansas, USA.
Ms. Chen Xi Ph.D. Oct 2006 – Jan 2011
First post-doc at Max Planck Institute, Dortmund, Germany.
At present post-doc at Oslo University/Stanford University joint program.
Ms. Suguna Badireddy Ph.D. Aug 2007 – Aug 2011
First research associate at National University of Singapore.
Returned back to India.
Mr. Pankaj Kumar Giri Ph.D. Aug 2007 – Aug 2011
At present post-doc at Scripps, Florida, USA
Ms. Reetu Sharma Ph.D. Jul 2010 – May 2012
Faculty, Jamia Islamia University, New Delhi, India.
Ms. Roopa Kothapalli Ph.D. Sep 2010 – January 2013
Awaiting thesis defense. Moving to Uppsala, Sweden.
Mr. Umar Farook Shahul Hameed Ph.D. Aug 2008 – Feb 2013
Awaiting thesis defense. Joining King Abdullah University of Science and Technology,
Saudi Arabia, as a postdoc.
Mr. Sampath Jeewantha Wijesinghe Ph.D. (NGS) Jan 2010 – December 2012
Awaiting thesis submission.
Ms. Farah Tasnim Ph.D. Aug 2009 – Nov 2010
Changed subject focus and supervisor.
Mr. Jikun Li Ph.D. Jan 2010 – Dec 2010
Moved 100% to TLL and changed co-supervisor.
Mr. Hua-Zhi Han M.Sc. Oct 2001 – Sep 2003
Ms. Vindhya Reddy M.Sc. Aug 2006 – August 2008
Ms. Anupama Vasudevan M.Sc. Aug 2006 – August 2008
Mr. Quoc-Toan Nguyen M.Sc. Aug 2007 – August 2009
Ms. Nan Li Technician Apr 1998 – Dec 2004
Mr. Julian Wang Technician Apr 2003 – Feb 2004
Mr. Chiang-Seng Ang Technician Jun 2003 – Feb 2004
Ms. Yean-Sin Ong Technician Oct 2004 – Sep 2005
Ms. Shin-Yi Chew Technician Jun 2006 – Oct 2007
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Ms. Mindy Lor Technician Jun 2008 – Aug 2008
Ms. Kanmani Saminathan Technician Jun 2009 – Oct 2011
Editorial / Reviewer positions
Editorial board member – International Journal of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Special issue editor – Asia Pacific Biotech News (World Scientific)
Special issue editor – J. Amino Acids (Hindawi)
Special issue editor – 3Biotech (Springer)
Reviewer
– Acta Crystallographica, Section D and Section F
Reviewer
– Biomed Central Structural Biology
Reviewer
– Biochimica et Biophysica Acta
Reviewer
– European J. of Biochemistry
Reviewer
– Extremophiles
Reviewer
– FEBS Letters
Reviewer
– International J. of Biological Macromolecules
Reviewer
– Investigational New Drugs
Reviewer
– J. Molecular Biology
Reviewer
– J. Structural Biology
Reviewer
– PLOS
Reviewer
– Protein and Peptide Letters
Reviewer
– The Plant Journal
Teaching / workshops
Biochemistry of Biomolecules (1 st year undergrad module for life-science students: Nucleic
acids, lipids, carbohydrates, 300 students, both semesters, 2001 - present)
Genes and society (1 st year undergrad module for non life-science students: biology,
biochemistry and biotechnology, 600 students, Sem-2, 2010 - present)
Structural Biology (4 th year undergrad module: X-ray crystallography and cryo-EM, also
module coordinator, 6-15 students, 2003 – 2007, Sem-2)
X-ray crystallography (Graduate module, 2003 – present, also module coordinator, 25
students, Sem-1, alternate years)
X-ray crystallography workshop, Intl. symposium on Structural biology, Singapore, Dec
2004.
Teacher training workshop for 50 teachers, 3 days on Enzymology for Ministry of Education,
Singapore, June 2005
X-ray crystallography workshop, Intl. symposium on Structural biology, Singapore, Dec
2008.
Faculty of Science, National University of Singapore: Invited speaker for a teaching
workshop on ‘improving student communication’, April 2011.
Center for Development of Teaching and Learning (CDTL): workshop for teaching assistants
on how to improve teaching, Sep 2011
Academic / administration committees
Ph.D. thesis Committee / examiner, National University of Singapore
Ph.D. thesis committee / examiner, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
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Ph.D. thesis examiner, Madras University, India
Ph.D. thesis examiner, Bharatidasan University, India
Faculty Search Committee (DBS/NUS)
Department out-reach committee, Ministry of Education, Singapore
Computational Structural Biology Collaboration, IBM, USA, June 2003
Singapore National Supercomputer Grid Project Delegation, Member to the TeraGrid
Project, USA, Sep 2003
Member, Department Teaching Evaluation Committee (Jul 2009 – present)
Chair, Department outreach Committee (Jul 2010 – Dec 2011)
Organizing roles
Dec. 2000 Intl. symposium on Structural biology, Singapore
Dec. 2002 Intl. symposium on Structural biology, Singapore
Dec. 2004 Intl. symposium on Structural biology, Singapore
Nov. 2006 India initiative – joint symposiums between NUS and Indian universities
Dec. 2006 Intl. symposium on Structural biology, Singapore
Nov. 2007 DBS/NUS – Indian Institute of Science Bilateral Symposium (with the
participation of Anna University, Chennai, Indian Inst. of Tech., Chennai, University of
Hyderabad and University of Madras) Singapore
Dec. 2008 Intl. symposium on Structural biology, Singapore
Dec. 2010 Chair, 6 th Intl. conference on Structural biology, Singapore
Wet lab experience
Cloning, protein overexpression in bacterial and baculovirus systems, protein purification,
crystallization, enzyme assay, western, pull-down, cell culture, flow cytometry,
immunohistochemistry, immunofluorescence, and other relevant techniques and related
equipment. Open to learn any new technique(s).
Instrumental experience
X-ray diffraction data collection in in-house and synchrotron systems
Routine and medium complex servicing of Rigaku RU-200 rotating anode X-ray generator
Factory trained in complete servicing Nonius FR591 rotating anode X-ray generator and
DIP2030 imageplate
Factory trained in complete servicing of Rigaku FU-R3 rotating anode X-ray generator and
R-Axis IV++ imageplate detector
Factory trained in complete servicing of Bruker Microstar-H rotating anode X-ray generator
and Pt135 CCD detector
Computer experience
Crystal and fiber diffraction data processing, structure determination and refinement.
Highly experienced in FORTRAN, C, C++, VISUAL BASIC, NOVELL NETWARE and
graphic systems CALCOMP and LASERPLOT programming. SGI trained in Silicon
Graphics system administration.
Installed, debugged and used several macromolecular and small molecular crystallographic
data processing, structure determination and graphics programs on different computers.
Individually developed several crystallographic utility programs and published.
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