Ruchir Chandrakant Bobde: The Plant Cell First Author

Ruchir Chandrakant Bobde, co-first author of “Plant-specific HDT family histone deacetylases are nucleoplasmins”

Current Position: Ph.D. student at the Institute of Life Sciences, Bhubaneswar, India

Education: M.Sc. in Biotechnology from Hislop College, RTM Nagpur University, Nagpur, India

Non-scientific Interests: Playing cricket, adventurous trips, listening to music.

Brief Bio:

During my bachelor’s degree in biotechnology, I got exposure to the field of molecular biology. The knowledge about the composition of a cell and the several processes happening within a cell fascinated me. My research interest was sparked during my master’s degree at Hislop College, where I was exposed to a proper research laboratory environment while working on my dissertation under the guidance of Dr. Arvind Ingle and the senior research scholars in his group. During this period, I was fortunate to get exposure to several fields of biotechnology through discussions and reading, and I wanted to understand proteins in greater detail. I got further motivated by my Professor, Dr. Avinash Upadhyay, with the stories about renowned crystallographers like Linus Pauling. I decided to pursue my doctoral studies in the field of crystallography and joined the macromolecular crystallography laboratory at the Institute of Life Sciences as a Ph.D. student under the guidance of Dr. Dileep Vasudevan.

My Ph.D. work focused on the enigmatic plant-specific family of histone deacetylases called HDTs, for which no structural information was available. With the help of crystallography and other biophysical techniques, we could describe these HDTs as nucleoplasmins. Along with crystal structures, we have also studied the stability aspect of HDTs and their histone interaction properties. I have also taken the lead and completed a collaborative project. During my Ph.D., I have developed a keen interest in chromatin structural biology and learned how to reconstitute nucleosome core particles in vitro. I have thoroughly enjoyed working on structural biology and biophysics-themed projects, and I hope to continue my research career in structural biology.