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Nixon M. Abraham

Also known as: Abraham NM

Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Pune, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen Donders Institute for Brain Cognition and Behaviour, Max-Planck-Institute for Medical Research

ORCID iD 0000-0001-8523-716X
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About

Dr. Nixon M. Abraham – Academic Summary

Dr. Nixon Abraham is currently working as an Assistant Professor (Tenured) & Wellcome-DBT India Alliance Senior Fellow in Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune, India. Dr. Abraham has come through an excellent career trajectory as a scientist in Neurobiology. He completed his Bachelor and master’s degrees in chemistry from Calicut University in Kerala, India with a First Class. He started his research career in Neurobiology with Prof. Obaid Siddiqi, NCBS, Bangalore in India by working on the olfactory behavior of fruit flies. After the pre-doctoral studies, Dr. Abraham completed his PhD thesis work with the highest distinction, “summa cum laude” from Prof. Dr. Bert Sakmann’s Department at Max- Planck-Institute for Medical Research, Heidelberg, Germany (with Prof. Dr. Thomas Kuner). His doctoral thesis work on the mechanisms of odor discriminations using mouse as the model system won two best thesis awards from the University of Heidelberg (Ruprecht-Karls-Prize 2008 and Joachim Siebeneicher Promotions Prize 2008). His excellent doctoral thesis work enabled him to get an independent postdoctoral fellowship from the Medical Faculty, University of Heidelberg. The results from his doctoral and postdoctoral research were published as two research articles in a high-impact peer-reviewed journal, Neuron (Cell Press). After completing this postdoctoral work, he moved to University of Geneva on an EMBO Long-Term Fellowship to investigate optogenetic modification of olfactory bulb circuits (with Prof. Dr. Alan Carleton). The research outputs from University of Geneva were published in high-impact peer-reviewed journals, Nature Neuroscience and eLife. For this excellent contribution, he won the Pfizer Research Prize in 2017. These achievements qualified him to get the Radboud Excellence Fellowship to work at the Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands (with Prof. Dr. Tansu Celikel), where he continued to work on the rodent olfactory system.

With his training in Experimental Systems Neuroscience, Dr. Abraham joined IISER Pune as a faculty in June 2015 where he set up a world-class laboratory to study the neural circuit mechanisms of brain functions in health and disease. To establish his cutting-edge research program, he was successful in receiving several competitive grants, including the prestigious Wellcome - DBT Intermediate & Senior Fellowships (Other funding sources were DST-Cognitive Science Research Initiative, Department of Biotechnology, and DBT-BIRAC). Currently Dr. Abraham’s laboratory stands unique in India with custom-built instrumentation and core facilities to study the causality between neural circuits and behavior under health and disease conditions. Besides his scientific research achievements, Dr. Abraham contributes towards teaching and mentor students for their bachelor, master and Ph.D degrees. Thus far, three PhD students have successfully graduated under his guidance, who are pursuing academic careers in internationally reputed research institutes. Twenty-nine Master’s students have completed their theses work under his supervision and Nineteen of them are pursuing their PhD in India and in US/UK/Canada/European Universities.

The research outcomes from Dr. Abraham’s laboratory (Research articles, book chapters and conference proceedings) were published in internationally reputed high-impact journals such as Nature Molecular Psychiatry, Lancet e clinical medicine, Cell Reports, FASEB Journal, and Current Research in Neurobiology. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Abraham, with his vast experience in Neurobiology of Olfaction, has designed and built an olfactory-action meter to quantify sensory and cognitive fitness in COVID-19 patients, which was reported by several national and international news media. An Indian patent and a US patent have been granted to this instrument and the methodology (Olfactory-action meter for precise quantification of olfactory dysfunctions and neurocognitive deficits).

Besides his appointment as a faculty in IISER Pune, Dr. Abraham is currently holding the position as the Director of Orbiton Life Sciences Private Limited, a company that is working towards drug discoveries. He has been involved in reviewing many international and national research grants as well as research articles of the international peer-reviewed journals.

Recently, he has won the Wellcome Trust – DBT India Alliance Senior Fellowship to investigate ‘multimodal’ olfactory perception in health and disease. He is looking forward to expand his research and development activities using this prestigious fellowship.

Employment

  • Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Pune Assistant Professor & Wellcome Trust DBT India Alliance Senior Fellow
    2023 - Present
  • Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Pune Assistant Professor & Wellcome Trust DBT India Alliance Intermediate Fellow
    2015 - 2022
  • Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen Donders Institute for Brain Cognition and Behaviour Radboud Excellence Fellow
    2014 - 2015
  • University of Geneva EMBO Fellow - Post doctoral fellow
    2009 - 2014
  • Ruprecht Karls Universität Heidelberg Post doctoral fellow
    2007 - 2009

Education

  • Max-Planck-Institute for Medical Research
    2002 - 2007

Projects & Funding

Projects & funding information is unavailable.

Publications (29)