Assistant Professor
PhD : Bose Institute, Kolkata, India
Post Doc. : University of Washington, Seattle
Email: ksureka@jisiasr.org
Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fCQ_jLMAAAAJ&hl=en
Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Microbiology, University of Washington, Seattle, USA
Ph.D., Department of Chemistry, Bose Institue, Kolkata, India
Research Topics
Host pathogen interaction, second messenger signaling ,human microbiome, community signaling,
cervical cancer
Research Focus:
My research is focused on elucidating the interactions of bacteria with their hosts that lead to the
development of pathological states, which includes understanding the signaling mechanism of the
microbial pathogens. Microbes almost always exist in complex communities in nature. Understanding
how these microbial interactions in multispecies communities and cohabitate with their multicellular
hosts vary in disease states in compared to healthy is necessary. One of the primary communication
media of the microbial world are small molecules like cyclic-di-nucleotide. Uncovering the mechanism of
small molecule induced regulation of microbial behavior in different states will lead to many important
discoveries. We employ various techniques including metagenomics, microbial genetics, biochemistry,
mass spectrometry, proteomics and cell culture for this purpose. Two of the major questions in this new
field aim to:
1. Understanding the role of cyclic-di-nucleotide in microbiota inter-community signaling.
Cyclic dinucleotide signaling in oral bacteria has been under-studied and understanding the effect of this
molecule on bacterial physiology and virulence in human oral cavity will be the focus of this project.
Understanding the effect of cyclic dinucleotide in the microbial community ecosystem and multispecies
biofilm formation will provide significant insight into the chemical communication network of the
respective microbiome and we use the human oral microbiome as the model.
2. Identification and prevention of cyclic-di-AMP mediated virulence mechanism of human
pathogens.
Cyclic-di-AMP have emerged as second messengers with fundamental biological roles in bacterial
physiology and host immunity. Understanding the mechanistic detail of c-di-AMP mediated virulence
mechanism and identification of the environmental cues that modulate this signaling pathway by
developing novel biosensor based tools will be a major outcome of this project. Several human oral
pathogens will be utilized get this mechanistic insight.
