Hello, my name is Divya Verma and im currently pursuing my master’s in biotechnology with my major being genetics and genomics from University of Western Australia. I am originally from a very small city in India, Patna ,where I was born and brought up and completed my school; after which I moved out to a different state for my bachelors.
I did my bachelor’s from Christ University (Bengaluru) wherein I hold triple major in Biotechnology, chemistry and botany. I then ,did an internship in National Center for Biological Sciences (NCBS, India) under the guidance of Dr. Uma Ramakrishna in the molecular ecology lab for the next few months. I also did an internship in Alkem Pharmaceuticals in my first year of bachelors in the microbiology laboratory during my summer break.
I have always been fascinated by what drives our behavior and traits and what makes us who we are, the underlying causes and their effects. In my bachelors, I was not sure which path to take, but my internship in NCBS made me realize I love being in lab and understand new research and scope and what will be helpful.
While I was looking for a research project to join in my second semester of masters in UWA, I looked though all the profiles, and I was intrigued by the work being done in the center. It encompassed my two fields together, chemistry and biotechnology and seemed like the perfect match for me, the genetic research was beyond stimulating and gave me the hope that I would be able to contribute to it if given a chance.
My current research project was based on the Implications of non-canonical DNA structures in osteosarcoma. Osteosarcoma is a malignant bone tumor which usually in 35% of the cases relapsed within 5 years of treatment. Our focus was the telomeres, as cancer cells are known to proliferate and spread and they do so by many mechanisms, one such being the telomere elongation.
They generally (about 90%) elongate the telomere by the activity of telomerase but in osteosarcoma about 40% elongation occurs due to another pathway called Alternative lengthening of telomere pathway (ALT). We wanted to know and determine the effects of certain non-canonical DNA structures like G4 and imotifs in two different osteosarcoma cell lines, U2OS (ALT positive) and MG63 (ALT negative) and how they would be affected when stabilized by different ligands.
There were three ligands that we chose, 1) GQC-05 which was G4 specific ligand, 2) 71795- which was imotif specific ligand and 3) GSA- which was a broad spectrum G4 specific ligand of a different chemical class.
According to various research, it has been observed that these G4 and iM structures could bind to the telomeres and affect the telomere elongation activity. Thus, we wanted to stabilize these structures through ligand binding and determine their effects of the cell lines of interest in Osteosarcoma. This could be a potential targeted therapy for osteosarcoma.
Through this research we hoped to understand the effects of these secondary DNA structures: G4 and imotif on the osteosarcoma cell lines and how they would also in turn affect the telomeres and their elongation in cancer cells. This could potentially lead to a targeted therapy for osteosarcoma and could help save lives as osteosarcoma generally affects young adults. This research could help prolong lives of thousands of young adults who have lost hope.
The impact on joining the Centre would be a huge aid. If I get the opportunity to join the center, I would be under the guidance of some of the greatest professional minds who have expertise in these field and area of research, and I will have access to the advanced lab facilitated and equipment which could be helpful to interpret my findings and making me a step closer to my goals.
I am usually a very shy and introverted person. I love watching horror movies and trying different kinds of food even though im not a great cook.
I love hanging out with my close-knit circle. I used to be an avid reader, but I left it for a while, but I have recently picked up a new book again.
