Essential eukaryotic structures, the cytoskeleton, centrosome, cilium, mitochondria and lysosome, are implicated in numerous human diseases, including degenerative-diseases, cancer and ciliopathies (combined affect 1 in every 3 people). Affected individuals have a reduced quality of life and their treatment places a significant financial burden on healthcare systems and on patients' families. Despite these organelles importance to human health, our knowledge of their roles in (particularly, tissue-specific) pathologies and extremophiles is limited.

The OBL primarily focuses on Cytoskeleton, Centrosome and Cilium - numerous signalling processes, vital for organism development and homeostasis, are regulated by centrosomes, that organise the cytoskeleton of cycling cells, and by cilia that act as cellular antenna with various functions. Centrosomes are composed of evolutionarily conserved centrioles, and during “Centrosome-to-Cilium” conversion (C2Cc), some centrioles acquire critical structures to become the base of cilia.

Different cell-types have distinct cilia, yet how this diversity arises from similar centrosomes and these diverse structures are maintained remain unknown. Research in our laboratory mainly focuses on investigating the mechanisms for building, diversity and maintenance of organelles, primarily Cytoskeleton, Centrosome and Cilia (we fondly call them 3Cs), in development, normal physiological and pathological conditions in model organisms and extremophiles.

For example, OBL asks:

What controls the organisation of several critical building blocks of 3Cs?

How are different portions of these structures assembled?

How these vital structures maintained and go wary with pathological, extermophilic conditions and ageing?

The OBL applies a multifaceted approach (including bio-physics, -chemistry and -informatics, genetics, transcriptomics, proteomics, advanced imaging, electrophysiology, instrumentation and animal behaviour) to investigate our questions of interests. We also apply our acquired knowledge in chemical biology, biomedicine and biotechnology.