Speaker Spotlight – ‘AJAY NAIR’ : 3rd Annual MarketsandMarkets Single Cell Analysis Conference


The 3rd Annual MarketsandMarkets Single Cell Analysis Conference kicks off at the Hyatt Regency Boston/Cambridge on the 23rd & 24th of June 2022. With 100+ attendees & stellar presentations from over 15+ industry experts and leaders, the countdown has well & truly begun.

As we look forward to the hosting you in person, our keynote speakers gear up to present their enriching presentations comprising insightful findings, ideas & their vision into the future of cell analysis.

Ajay Nair, working as an Associate Research Scientist at the universally acclaimed Columbia University in New York, lifted the curtain ever so slightly allowing us a sneak peek of his presentation for the conference.
Here his response to a few of our questions:
  


1. What are the recent advances in single-cell analysis and current challenges that need immediate attention?

Single cell and spatial transcriptomics, epigenomics and proteomics have allowed measurement of RNA, chromatin states and proteins at single cell levels. Diseases such as cancer or fibrosis are caused by cell states driven by aberrant regulatory proteins. These proteins usually have very low RNA expression and are activated by their phosphorylation states. Therefore, these disease-causing regulatory proteins cannot be identified using current single cell technologies. We have developed methods to identify these regulatory proteins in single cell datasets from diseased and normal samples.

2. What are the key takeaways from your presentation topic which will help in building the knowledge base of attendees? 

I’ll be presenting single cell data from different technologies such as single-cell RNA-seq, single-nucleus RNA-seq and spatial transcriptomics showing the similarities and differences. I will describe our novel single cell analysis method to identify disease causing regulatory proteins using these datasets. This is important therapeutically because our lab has previously shown that identifying and targeting the disease-causing regulatory proteins can revert the disease phenotypes and cure. In general, our novel single cell analysis method can identify transcriptional master regulators. This tool can be used to identify lineage transcription factors or to identify disease causing master regulators depending on the input dataset and analysis procedure.

 
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Ajay Nair’s research is focused on developing computational techniques to identify cellular regulatory interactions from high-throughput data. He completed his engineering master’s degree from IIT-Delhi holding the first rank and Joint-PhD in Computational Biology from IIT-Bombay and Monash University, Australia. His postdoc training was with Prof. Andrea Califano and Prof. Robert Schwabe at Columbia University. Ajay and his team have identified regulatory interactions and identified drugs in Ovarian Cancer and Gastric Cancer as well as identified and characterized disease causing fibroblasts in COVID-19 affected lungs, human ICC and liver metastases.

Keep a keen eye out on this space for more such insightful excerpts from leading experts sharing their outlook on the latest innovations, challenges & the path forward!

CLICK HERE TO EXPLORE & REGISTER FOR THE EVENT or reach out to us at [email protected] regarding any queries you may have.
We’d be glad to assist you!

Ayush Kanitkar
MarketsandMarkets
+91-8975985061

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