Research Clinical

Niraj Lodhi, Ph.D.

WORK AUTHORIZATION: CONTACT INFORMATION:

Permanent Resident (Green Card) (M) 585-***-****, E-mail: **********@*****.***

RESEARCH INTERESTS:

Self-motivated, productive and interested to work with an inter-disciplinary clinical research team to translate my scientific research experience and passion in understanding of epigenetic mechanisms of human diseases and successful approaches for combinations of multiple present and new innovative therapies.

SUMMARY OF QUALIFICATIONS:

1. Collaborative scientist with five years of experience in clinical research study of PARP-1 inhibitors on cancer cells, clonogenic cell survival assay, PARP-1 inhibitory assay in human cells, PARP-1 activity assay, study on Poly(ADP-Ribosyl)ating enzymes in aging control of Drosophila.

2. Led two research projects (PARP-1 inhibitors and aging), served as a laboratory instructor, duties were including training of graduate students and laboratory technicians, actively participated in lab managements, purchase, safety protocols, good lab practices, maintenance of instruments, chemicals directory and scheduling lab meetings.

3. Diverse experience from collaborated projects to contract research organizations (CRO), patents and publications, completion of research projects in timely manner, proficiency in soft and communication skills.

EDUCATION:

National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI) and University of Lucknow, Lucknow (India),

Ph.D. in Molecular Biology 2002-2009

School of Life Sciences, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University, Agra (India),

M.Sc. (Biotechnology) 1997-1999

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University, Agra (India),

B.Sc. (Biology) 1993-1996

PRESENT POSITION:

Scientist (Part time) Jan. 2017-Present

Tara Innovations, East Hanover, NJ

Formulations, drug delivery development, HPLC to determine temperature, light and pH effect on stability of drugs, pharmacodynamics, pharmacokinetics, analytical, drug development and validation studies.

RESEARCH EXPERIENCES:

1. Post-doctoral Associate, Aug. 2014-Dec. 2016

Weill Cornell Medical College/Columbia University, New York,

Mentors: Miklos Toth, Ph.D./ A. Tkatchenko

Projects: (i). Role of DNA methylation in non-genetic mediated transmission of behavior across generations and study of interaction of differentially methylate DNA regions to chromatin. (ii). Role of DNA methylation in refractive errors of eye (myopia or hyperopia) in mouse model.

2. Post-doctoral Associate, 2008-2014

Epigenetics and Progenitor Cells Program Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia PA,

Mentor: Alexei Tulin, Ph.D.

Project: Investigated the role of PARP-1 in gene transcription, maintaining transcription after mitosis, and developing specific, non-NAD dependent PARP-1 inhibitors for the treatment of cancer.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

Discoveries 2; Qualifications 7; Research Accomplishments 18; Teaching Experiences 3; Skills and Techniques 8; Honors and Awards 5; Publications 18; Presentations 9; Memberships 4

SCHOLARSHIPS, HONORS AND AWARDS:

Education Department of Uttar Pradesh Government, High School Fellowship (1990), Lucknow, (Uttar Pradesh), India.

University Grant Commission and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (UGC- CSIR), Lectureship and Junior Research Fellowship (2001), New Delhi, India.

Indian Institute of Sciences, Department of Higher Education, GATE Fellowship (2000), New Delhi, India.

Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR), Senior Research Fellowship (2001), New Delhi, India.

Interview published in Sigma Xi magazine (American Scientific Research Society) (2015), USA.

SKILLS AND TECHNIQUES:

1. Mammalian cell culture: Maintenance of multiple human tumor cell lines (HEK293, HeLa, prostate and ovarian), generation of stable cell lines for knock down or knock out of gene expression, mouse cell line transfection and Luciferase gene expression assay.

2. Nucleic acid studies: PCR, restriction digestion, sequencing, ligation, isolation and sub- cloning of DNA from specific genomic locus, electrophoretic technique.

3. Cell biology and immunology: Flow Cytometry, FACS, ELISA, Immunohistochemistry, Immunoassay, Cell Sorting, Antibody Titer determination.

4. Protein expression, purification, Assays and Analytical Techniques: Cloning, protein expression and purification of recombinant protein (rProtein) from various cell lines, EMSA, western blotting, SDS-PAGE, Immunoprecipitation (Ip) and Co-Ip, PARP1 enzymatic assay, host cell protein (HCP), Formulation development, Granule formation, High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), Size-exclusion chromatography (SEC), Gel Filtration.

5. Molecular biology: Designing of recombinant constructs, cloning, Sanger Sequencing, Capillary Electrophoresis (CE) Sequencing, and expression of reporter genes in plant cells, budding yeast and Drosophila. Experienced in mini and large-scale of plasmid preparation, various strains of bacteria to generate recombinant tagged protein (production and purification), produced CFP-tagged proteins to generate transgenic expression in Drosophila system.

6. Epigenetics: ChIP, ChIP-seq, 4C-seq and DNA bisulfite sequencing, Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), Singleplex or multiplex library preparation for Reduced Representation Bisulfite Sequencing (RRBS) (TruSeq PCR Free and TruSeq Nano DNA, automated TECAN platform), modified histones peptide array, nuclei isolation and nuclear protein preparation, detailed studies of covalent histone modifications and interaction of transcription factors to genes through qChIP- PCR.

7. Computer/Software skills: Data analysis of NGS, ChIP-seq data, Gene Signature Enrichment Analysis, Gene ontology, Gene Annotation, computationally prediction of nucleosome binding affinity, Genome browsers (UCSC, Ensembl, TAIR, FlyBase, Mouse Genome Database, Budding Yeast Genome Database), Genomic sequence analysis tools (Transfac, ClustalW, ExPasy, MEME suit, PANTHER, Primer3 and DAVID).

8. Workshops: DNA Sequence Analysis and UNIX language for programming to analyze next generation sequencing data.

MAJOR PUBLICATIONS (PEER REVIEWED):

1. Thomas C, Ji Y, Kotova E, Lodhi N, Pinnola AD, Golovine K, Makhov P, Pechenkina K, Kolenko V, Tulin AV. (2016) New generation non-NAD-like PARP-1 inhibitors effectively eliminate drug resistant tumors in vivo. EBioMedicine. 13:90-98.

2. Ji Y, Thomas C, Tulin N, Lodhi N, Boamah E, Kolenko V, Tulin AV. (2016) Charon mediates IMD-driven PARP-1 dependent immune responses in Drosophila. Journal of Immunology. 197: 2382-2389.

3. Sharma A, Klien SS, Barboza L, Lodhi N, Toth M (2016) Principles governing DNA methylation during neuronal lineage and subtype specification. J Neuroscience. 36:1711-22.

4. Lodhi N, Tulin AV (2016) PARP-1 mitotic bookmarking: maintaining post-mitotic reprogramming of Transcription reactivation. Current Molecular Biology Reports. 2:10-16.

5. Lodhi N, Kossenkov AV, Tulin AV. (2014) Bookmarking promoters in mitotic chromatin: Poly(ADP-ribose)Polymerase-1 as an epigenetic mark. Nucleic Acid Research. 42:7028-38.

6. Lodhi N, Tulin AV. (2011) PARP1 genomics: chromatin immunoprecipitation approach using anti-PARP-1 antibody (ChIP and ChIP-seq). Methods Mol Biol. 780:191-208.

7. Kotova E, Lodhi N, Jarnik M, Pinnola AD, Ji Y, Tulin AV. (2011) Drosophila histone H2A variant (H2Av) controls poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP-1) activation in chromatin. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 108:6205-10.

8. Lodhi N, Ranjan A, Singh M, Srivastava R, Singh SP, Chaturvedi CP, Ansari SA, Sawant SV, Tuli R. (2008) Interactions between upstream and core promoter sequences determine gene expression and nucleosome positioning in tobacco PR-1a promoter. BBA-Gene Regulatory Mechanisms. 1779:634-44.

ORAL PRESENTATIONS:

1. Poly(ADP-ribose)Polymerase-1 as an epigenetic memory mark in mitotic chromatin in Penn Epigenetics Program (June 13, 2013) at Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

2. PARP-1 marks mitotic chromatin and regulates post-mitotic transcription in 17th Annual Postdoctoral and Graduate Student Research Conference (June 1st, 2012) at Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia.

3. Genome wide analysis of PARP-1 in chromatin in Histone Variants and Genome Regulation conference (October 12-14, 2011) at IGBMC Strasbourg (France).

FUTURE AIM:

Continue as dedicated research scientist to pursue PARP-1 research to investigate relationships between PARP-1 and different cancers and address how deregulation of poly(ADP-ribose) turnover alters chromatin structure in normal and cancer cells and to what extent resulting changes in transcription profile control cancer cell survival and proliferation.

MEMBERSHIP IN PROFESSIONAL SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES:

Epigenetics Society, Barcelona (Spain) 2012- present

New York Academy of Science, New York (USA) 2012- present

Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society, North Carolina (USA) 2012- present

Cancer Epigenetics Society, Vienna (Austria) 2016- Present

LINKEDIN PROFILE ID: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niraj-lodhi-83172438

GEOGRAPHICAL PREFERENCES: No

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