IISER MOHALI

Professor , Biological Sciences

Broad area of research: Theoretical biology, nonlinear dynamics and complex systems with a view to understand the logic & design of biological processes.

Brief description: Our interest is to analyse the evolution and maintenance of spatiotemporal organization in biological systems spanning multiple spatiotemporal scales - from ecological to genetic. Along with mathematical modelling, we also perform computational analysis of genomes and protein sequences to extract structural, functional and evolutionary information.
Specifically, we have studied -

1. protein structure-function using Protein Contact Networks;
2. host-parasite coevolution from pathogen genome analysis;
3. evolution of metabolic pathways using comparative genomics;
4. metabolic pathway analysis using graph theory and optimisation techniques;
5. regulatory processes in biochemical pathways, and gene circuits;
6. collective behaviour in multi-cell systems using physical principles;
7. dynamics of single and interacting populations under ecological processes;
8. disease prevalence in population using mathematical and statistical modelling.

We are also interested in studying general principles of controlling dynamics and synchronisation in biological systems.

• Differential Trends in the Codon Usage Patterns in HIV-1 Genes. Aridaman Pandit, Somdatta Sinha. PLoS ONE. 2011, 6(12): e28889. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0028889
• Stability of synchronization in a multi-cellular system. Suma Ghosh, G. Rangarajan, Somdatta Sinha. Europhysics Letter 2010, 92. 40012..
• Delay-Induced Transient Increase and Heterogeneity in Gene Expression in Negatively Auto-regulated Gene Circuits. R Maithreye, R R Sarkar, V K Parnaik, Somdatta Sinha. PLoS ONE 2008, 3(8): e2972 doi:10.1371/ journal.pone. 0002972.
• Assortative mixing in Protein Contact Networks and protein folding kinetics. Ganesh Bagler; Somdatta Sinha. Bioinformatics, 2007, doi:0.1093/bioinformatics/btm257.
• Unusual Dynamics of Extinction in a Simple Ecological Model. Somdatta Sinha, Parthasarathy, S. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. (USA) 1996, 93, pp 1504 -1508.