Introduction:
Divya Sain is a 3rd year PhD student in the GGB program who is using bioinformatics and wet bench techniques to study evolution of the fungal cell wall across major lineages. She is integrating phylogenomics and functional genomics approaches to study the evolutionary history of the genes involved in the biosynthesis and maintenance of the fungal cell wall as well as attempting to find novel genes having a cell wall related function by using Neurospora crassa as a model system.
She passed her qualifying exam in September 2010.
Education:
Bachelors in Technology (Biotechnology)-CET-IILM-AHL (Affiliated to Uttar Pradesh Technical University, Lucknow, India)
Publications:
- Ma LJ, van der Does HC, Borkovich KA, Coleman JJ, Daboussi MJ, Di Pietro A, Dufresne M, Freitag M, Grabherr M, Henrissat B, Houterman PM, Kang S, Shim WB, Woloshuk C, Xie X, Xu JR, Antoniw J, Baker SE, Bluhm BH, Breakspear A, Brown DW, Butchko RA, Chapman S, Coulson R, Coutinho PM, Danchin EG, Diener A, Gale LR, Gardiner DM, Goff S, Hammond-Kosack KE, Hilburn K, Hua-Van A, Jonkers W, Kazan K, Kodira CD, Koehrsen M, Kumar L, Lee YH, Li L, Manners JM, Miranda-Saavedra D, Mukherjee M, Park G, Park J, Park SY, Proctor RH, Regev A, Ruiz-Roldan MC, Sain D, Sakthikumar S, Sykes S, Schwartz DC, Turgeon BG, Wapinski I, Yoder O, Young S, Zeng Q, Zhou S, Galagan J, Cuomo CA, Kistler HC, Rep M. Comparative genomics reveals mobile pathogenicity chromosomes in Fusarium.Nature. 2010 Mar 18;464(7287):367-73.
- Divya Sain and Jason E. Stajich. A Phylogenomic approach to study the evolutionary history of the cell wall across major fungal lineages. In prep.
Awards and Honors:
- UCR Graduate Division Fellowship- 2008
- Klotz Memorial Travel Award- 2011
Posters presented:
- John Abramyan, Divya Sain, Jason E. Stajich. Bioinformatic analysis of species-specific gene family changes in the amphibian pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. Evolution 2010. Portland. June 2010
- Divya Sain, Jason E. Stajich. Studying Fungal Cell Wall evolution using comparative genomics & phylogenetics. 1st Annual SoCal SysBio. Irvine. Jan 2011.
- Divya Sain and Jason E. Stajich. Utilizing functional genomics in Neurospora crassa to identify cell wall genes. 26th Fungal Genetics Conference. Asilomar. March 2011
Prior projects:
- Study of Superoxide dismutase (SOD)1 activity in humans with disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Biomantra Pvt Ltd, New Delhi.
- Association studies of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) in Human Lung Cancer. Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, New Delhi.
Prior Work Experience:
- Research Assistant- Identification of phylogenetic subgroups of Glomales within colonized roots of Sorghum Bicolor. The Energy and Resources Institute, New Delhi
Other Achievements:
- Currently training two undergraduates in wet bench techniques in the lab.
Extracurricular activities:
- Member of the National Honor Society- Omicron Delta Kappa.
- An active member of Rotaract Club (Youth Branch Of Rotary Club)
- Awarded the ‘Project leader of the year’ by Rotaract Club, Riverside (India)
- Member of the GGB Graduate Student Association Seminar committee
- Member of the organizing committee of Biotech National Seminar- BIOGENESIS (CET-IILM-AHL)
- Secured 1st Position in the Biotech Dept. Poster Competition (CET-IILM-AHL)
- Secured 1st Position in the Interbranch Quiz Competition held at (CET-IILM-AHL)
