Dear Hiring Manager, This letter is to express my interest in your c

Anshika Sharma Ph.D.

**** ******* ******, ****** ** 30622

Cell: 574-***-****:

***************@*****.***

Immigration Status: G reen Card based employment authorization

Sum ma ry

Research Microbiologist with 9 years experience. Accomplished in generating

and applying new protocols and technologies in the field of infectious diseases

using Drug discovery, Molecular Biology, Immunology and Biochemistry

techniques. Analytical and detail-oriented.

H ighlights

• Microbiological techniques

• Aseptic processing

• L ipid purification and analysis

• PCR

• Mouse work

• Nucleic Acids Isolation and analysis

• Specialty in enzyme activity

• Chromatographic purification

Accomplishments

• BSL-3 experience: 9 years of working experience in Bio-safety level-3

(BSL-3) laboratory

• Handling of pathogens: M ycobacterium tuberculosis, B acil lus

a nthracis, and non-pathogenic cultures.

• Animal Experience: Handling of laboratory animals like mice and

Guinea pigs Isolation of Bronchiole Alveolar Lavage (BAL), t issues,

and various lymph nodes in mice.

• Dosing of mice by intranasal, oral gavage, I.P./subcutaneous injections

Retro-orbital/ tail vein bleeding in mice, PK/PD studies.

• Immunological techniques: EL ISA, FACS, Lymphocyte proliferation

assay, Estimation of various cytokines by multiplex, Macrophage

activation assay, Phagocytosis assay estimation etc.

• Tissue culture techniques: Generation of hybridoma, Generation of

bone marrow chimera and adaptive t ransfer in mice, Maintaining

mammalian cell line, Generation of bone marrow derived

macrophages/dendritic cells, Generation of human monocyte derived

M 1 and M2 macrophages, and dendritic cells etc.

• Microbiology techniques: Phagocytosis assay, Microbial cultures,

Colony forming units (CFU) enumeration etc.

• Molecular Biology Techniques: Cloning and gene expression,

t ransduction, t ransfection, DNA & RNA extraction, RT-PCR and

QPCR.

• Proteomics Techniques: MALDI-TOF, LC-MS-MS; Protein purification

by whole gel electro-elution, multi-elution, and affini ty column

chromatography, Western blotting, SDS- PAGE, Native PAGE, 2-D

PAGE, L ipid purification by TLC.

• Microscopic Techniques: Confocal microscopy, Immunofluorescence,

L ight microscopy, and Electron microscopy.

• Software/bioinformatics skills:

• Flow-cytometry data analysis using Flow-Jo and WIN-MD I software.

• Statistical software – SPSS and Prizm

• Application Software: PC and Mac application, MS office (Excel, Power

Point etc.), Adobe Photoshop.

Experience

Postdoctoral Researcher

April 2011 to June 2012

The University of Georgia - Athens, GA

• In vitro susceptibility testing for determining antitubercular activity of

natural products and related compounds in broth and mammalian cell

culture using biological and Toxicology assays i.e Micro broth dilution,

E L ISA, lymphocyte proliferation assay and f low cytometry.

R esearch Associate

April 2010 to April 2011

University of Chicago - Chicago,IL

• L ipoteichoic acid biosynthesis in B acil lus anthracis: To explore the

possibility that B . anthracis may synthesize LTA, a bioinformatic

approach was used and searched the genome of B. anthracis for

homologues of S. aureus L taS. This search identified four polytopic

membrane proteins with a conserved sulfatase (LtaS) domain, which

were designated L taS1, L taS2, L taS3, and L taS4. Genetic analysis

revealed that the l taS1 and l taS2 genes were both necessary and

sufficient for LTA synthesis in B. anthracis and in other bacterial

species. B. anthracis variants unable to synthesize LTA displayed

m ultiple defects in envelope assembly that may account for the

i nability of mutant bacilli to sporulate and to separate dividing cells

d uring their vegetative life cycle.

P ostdoctoral Research Associate

September 2008 to April 2010

University of Notre Dame - Notre Dame, I N

• Role of M ycobacterium avium Glycopeptidolipids (GPL) in the

modulation of host innate immune response.In this study Macrophages

and mice deficient in MR expression were used, MR knockout mice

showed increased TNF-alpha production and lower bacterial numbers

compared to wild-type mice when infected with M . avium 724. Using

C HO cells expressing the MR I t was found that M . avium 724 can

d irectly bind the MR and that cytokine production was significantly

elevated in MR-deficient compared to wild-type macrophages following

i nfection. Analogous to what was found with intact bacteria, GPLs

f rom M . avium 724 bind to the MR and MR-deficient macrophages

p roduced significantly higher levels of TNF-alpha and I L-6 compared

to wild-type macrophages when t reated with GPLs. Together, this

data suggest that M . avium 724’s interaction with the MR may

p romote its vi rulence by limiting the host cytokine response upon

i nfection.

Education

Ph.D. M ic robiology & Biochemistry, 2008

I ndia

Mycobacterial Peptide deformylase as a possible target for new generation

antibacterial agents for experimental tuberculosis under in vitro, ex vivo and

i n vivo conditions. Cloning and expression of recombinant Peptide

deformylase.

M.S M icrobiology, 2002

B.S L ife Sciences, 2000

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