Pankaj Singh, PhD

Advisor: Donna Neumann, PhD

Keywords: HSV-1, DNA loops

Education
BSc 2004, Biology, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, India
MSc 2006, Biochemistry, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, India
PhD 2013, Biotechnology, Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi, India

Research
Dr. Singh’s research is focused on understanding epigenetic control of HSV-1 in lytic, latency, and reactivation stages of infection which may cause vision impairment. Host transcription factors play a key role in viral gene expression during the different stages of infection. In mammalian genomes, the cohesin complex colocalizes with CTCF insulators on chromatin, likely to anchor DNA loops to control transcriptional programs. Dr. Singh is interested in exploring how the HSV-1 genome is organized into three-dimensional structures, or DNA loops, in order to control viral transcription at different infection stages and how disruption of these DNA loops might contribute to reactivation of HSV-1 genomes.