BC

Bappaditya Chandra

Research areas: Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Molecular Biology · Genomics and Chromatin Dynamics · Protein Structure and Dynamics · Nuclear Structure and Function

ORCID iD 0000-0001-7595-937X
Follow

About

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at North Dakota State University, where I began my faculty position in January 2025. My lab webpage is www.chandra-lab.com. My research focuses on understanding how transcription factors orchestrate gene expression programs through the formation of biomolecular condensates via liquid-liquid phase separation. Specifically, I investigate how disruption and mutations in these condensates drive cancer progression and genetic disorders, with particular emphasis on the role of intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) in enabling droplet formation and biomolecular assembly.

I completed my postdoctoral training (2018-2024) at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in the Department of Structural Biology under Dr. Richard W. Kriwacki, where I made significant contributions to understanding fusion oncoprotein-driven cancers. My work demonstrated that phase separation is a common mechanism enabling oncogenicity among fusion oncoproteins, revealing these condensates as potential therapeutic targets.

I earned my Ph.D. in Biophysics (2018) from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, India, where my doctoral research focused on protein misfolding and amyloid aggregation using interdisciplinary biophysical approaches. I also hold an M.Sc. in Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (2011) and a B.Sc. in Chemistry from Visva-Bharati University (2009).

I have received several prestigious awards, including the competitive Neoma Boadway Endowed Fellowship at St. Jude (2020), the Best Ph.D. Thesis Award from TIFR (2018), and the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Fellowship from CSIR, Government of India (2011). My research has been published in leading journals, including Nature Communications, Cancer Discovery, and Annual Reviews of Cancer Biology. I serve as a guest editor for the journal Molecules and actively review manuscripts for numerous scientific journals.

Employment

Employment history is unavailable.

Education

Education history is unavailable.

Projects & Funding

  • Phase Separation of NUP98-HOXA9 Fusion Oncoprotein and its Role in Leukemia St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
    2020 - 2023

Publications

Publications are unavailable.