SERB CRG grant awarded to Dr. Vinay Bulusu

IISER Berhampur community congratulates Dr. Vinay Bulusu for being the recipient of the SERB CRG grant. Dr. Bulusu has received the funding for a project entitled,"Elucidation of metabolic gradients in embryonic development and patterning”. Talking about the uniqueness of the project Dr Bulus said, while the genetic basis of development and patterning is fairly worked out, there is a lack of understanding as to how central carbon metabolism impacts embryonic development. During his postdoctoral stint at EMBL Heidelberg, he demonstrated the existence of a glycolytic gradient along the presomitic mesoderm that helps in axial elongation and patterning. Such a gradient confirms an old hypothesis of “Biochemical gradient of development” proposed by Charles Manning Child. In this project, Vinay and team plan to use Chick embryos as a model system (in lieu of a lack of animal facility) and address this hypothesis further using a combination of gene expression analysis, imaging and metabolomics. As the chick system is very hard for genetic analysis, his team plan to use the genetically tractable Drosophila system in collaboration with Dr. Manish Jaiswal from TIFR-Hyderabad. Together the interplay of metabolism with signalling gradients will be worked out. Vinay believes that this study might lead us to understand partly the cellular basis of embryopathies whose etiology is linked to diabetes or malnutrition.