Nayanika Das

Currently a PhD student with the research group CBBL led by Prof.Dr. ‪Jordi Villà Freixa at University of Vic-Central University Of Catalonia. Research Highlight: Investigating The Structural and Functional Effects of Glutathione Peroxidases Variants. Glutathione peroxidase are cysteine and selenocysteine containing proteins with a central role in reactive oxygen species control within the cell. In particular, different isoforms of Glutathione Peroxidase (GPX), including their mutations, have been labelled as potential targets to control or cause the oxidative stress during cancer evolution. In particular, eight different cysteine and selenocysteine containing isoforms of Glutathione Peroxidase (GPX1-8) isoforms have been identified in humans. The relationships between the mechanism and the structure is not entirely understood, although it has been shown that catalytic activity of several reconstructed ancestral structures of GPX6 recover their oxidative activity when the active site is mutated from Cys to Sec. So the hypothesis states the loss may be due to the accumulation of mutations and not to a single central residue. All this results have led us to propose a combination of QM/MM, empirical valence bond (EVB) calculations and structural bioinformatics tools to unravel sequence-structure-function relationships in GPX6 and its orthologs. Completed Bachelor's Degree in Biotechnology from Fergusson College, Pune, India. Master's degree from Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune, India focused in Bioinformatics. During Masters Worked on a project under Dr. Vijay Balandhye and Co-guide Dr. Rohan Meshram based on NRAS protein in Melanoma, structural study, virtual screening of natural compounds, molecular docking and interaction analysis to find potential inhibitors. Former 2.4 years Experienced Editorial Assistant, Peer Review Advisor At Springer Nature, Pune, India in the Publication Process, dealing with the ethics, scientific literature review and editorial process of different parts of scientific research. Passionate about Genres Of Art, Culture, Psychology, Literature and Philosophy.