Dr. Isha Goel completed her bachelor’s in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Delhi. Her master’s and Ph.D. were in Life Sciences from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, where she carried out her research work at the School of Life Sciences under the supervision of Dr. Rohini Muthuswami. The aim of her doctoral work was to understand the role of chromatin remodeling in eukaryotic gene expression and its regulation in cancer. Using bioinformatics and wet-lab approaches, she characterised the promoter elements of the SMARCAL1 and brg1 genes and further proved their co-regulation as well as co-existence at the DNA repair sites in response to doxorubicin-induced ds-DNA damage in mammalian cancer cell lines. Her research revealed the existence of a distinct transcriptional regulatory mechanism used by SMARCAL1 and BRG1 for normal cellular function, the improper operation of which can be linked to severely diseased states such as SIOD or cancer, providing a novel therapeutic approach. During her Ph.D., she presented her work at several prestigious conferences.
Details of her postdoctoral research:
- ICMR-NICPR, Noida: She worked on the detection and typing of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV 16/18) infection in different grades of esophageal cancer tissues and further analysed the effect on activation and expression of NF-κB in esophageal cancer cell lines.
- ICMR–AIIMS Computational Genomics Centre, New Delhi: She carried out research on Cancer Genomics based on Whole Exome (Germline and Somatic Variant Calling) and Transcriptomic high-throughput sequencing data analysis using a computational approach.
- Department of Paediatrics, AIIMS: She worked as a Bioinformatics Research Associate to characterize genotypic factors responsible for antimicrobial resistance and virulence in neonatal sepsis based on bacterial Whole genome sequencing and Metagenomics (16S, Shotgun)
She is currently a Project Scientist II (Bioinformatics) for ICMR-funded research led by Dr. S. Karmakar, Department of Biochemistry, AIIMS, and Prof. Nand Kumar, Department of Psychiatry, AIIMS, which aims to predict the significance of genetic markers in patients’ responses to standard antidepressant medication.
Email ID: isha68_sls@jnu.ac.in, ishagoel.aiims@gmail.com