Babita SHARMA

Research Fellow

PhD. Biological Sciences | CSIR-Indian institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, India
MSc. Life Sciences | Central University of Punjab, India

About

Babita completed her Ph.D. from CSIR-IGIB institute under the mentorship of Dr. Vivek T Natarajan. Her thesis work involved investigating role of selective N-glycan branching during early pigment cell-fate development and its relevance during melanoma initiation. Her research identified glycosylation pathways as actionable therapeutic targets for developmental pigmentary disorders and also for melanoma progression. Her research interests lie in deciphering molecular and cellular regulatory mechanisms that contribute to development, disease progression, and therapeutic opportunities.

Beyond research, she enjoys discovering new places, cooking comforting meals, and listening to old music that never loses its charm.

Project

Babita’s research in Thibault lab focuses on understanding host-microbe interactions in chronic wound infections. She is particularly interested in understanding how UPR pathways contribute to wound infection pathogenesis.

Publications

  1. Sharma, B., Aswin, K., Jain, T., Nasreen, A., Aggarwal, A., Subramaniam, Y J., ... & Natarajan, V. T (2025). Mgat4b- mediated selective N-glycosylation regulates melanocyte development and melanoma progression. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(22), e2423831122. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2423831122

  2. Sharma, B., Subramaniam, Y J., Raja, D. A., Aggarwal, A., Sivasubbu, S., & Natarajan, V. T (2022). Reverse Genetic Approach to Identify Regulators of Pigmentation using Zebrafish. JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments), (181), e62955. DOI: 10.3791/62955

  3. Aggarwal, A., Nasreen, A., Sharma, B., Sahoo, S., Aswin, K., Faruq, M., ... & Natarajan, V. T (2024). Distinct melanocyte subpopulations defined by stochastic expression of proliferation or maturation programs enable a rapid and sustainable pigmentation response. Plos Biology, 22(8), e3002776. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002776

  4. Sharma, B., Kaur, R. P, Raut, S., & Munshi, A. (2018). BRCA1 mutation spectrum, functions, and therapeutic strategies: The story so far. Current problems in cancer, 42(2), 189-207. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.currproblcancer.2018.01.001

  5. Raja, D. A., Gotherwal, V., Burse, S. A., Subramaniam, Y J., Sultan, F., Vats, A., Gautam, H., Sharma, B., Sharma, S., Singh, A. and Sivasubbu, S., & Natarajan, V. T (2020). pH-controlled histone acetylation amplifies melanocyte differentiation downstream of MITF. EMBO reports, 21(1), e48333. DOI: https://doi.org/10.15252/embr.201948333

  6. Naushin, S., Sardana, V., Ujjainiya, R., Bhatheja, N., Kutum, R., Bhaskar, A. K.,… Sharma, B.... & Sengupta, S. (2021). Insights from a Pan India sero-epidemiological survey (phenome-India cohort) for SARS-CoV2. Elife, 10, e66537. DOI:  https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.66537

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