Gene Technology

Shiladitya DasSarma

Shiladitya DasSarma
Microbiology and Immunology
University of Maryland, USA

Biography

Dr. DasSarma received his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA in 1984 and conducted postdoctoral training from 1984-86 at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA. He served on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst from 1986 until 2001. During this time, Dr. DasSarma was a pioneered in genetic research on extremely halophilic microorganisms and his group led the first genome project on a halophilic Archaea, Halobacterium sp. NRC-1. In 2001, his group moved to the University of Maryland, where he has continued post-genomic, bioinformatic, and biotechnological investigations of halophilic Archaea. In Maryland, he also founded the PhD Track in Molecular Genetics, Genomics, and Bioinformatics in the Graduate Program in Life Science at the School of Medicine. Dr. DasSarma has published more than 100 papers, edited the Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory Manual, Halophiles, and is currently Co-Editor-In-Chief of the BioMed Central journal, Aquatic Biosystems.

Research Interest

Shiladitya DasSarma research interests include broadly the fields of microbiology, genomics, and biotechnology of Archaea. He utilizes model systems to study fundamental processes, such as DNA replication, transcription, and gene regulation, in order to understand the remarkable ability of Archaea to survive in a wide range of environments, from the human micro biome to novel extreme environments. He also developed bioinformatics tools and databases for genome annotation, comparative genomics, and global gene regulation studies.