My current research funded by MRSEC is a component of the Prof. Jeff Gelles’s lab at Brandeis University. We are interested in studying the dissociation pathway of small ligands in the presence of competitors and explore how rapid rebinding affects the dissociation rates in biological systems. This project is a collaboration with Prof. Jane Kondev attached to the Physics Department at Brandeis.
My doctoral research was exploring Drug-DNA interactions at single molecule level using optical tweezers under the supervision of Prof. Mark Williams at Northeastern University, Boston. In our studies we have resolved the mystery related to the DNA binding mode of the cancer drug ActinomycinD and have directly measured the kinetics related to this binding . We also investigated the threading intercalators that are being developed as new class of potent anticancer drug in collaboration with Prof. Per Lincoln and Dr. Fredrik Westerlund from Chalmers University, Gothenburg, Sweden.
E-mail: thaya@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-2378
Office: Kosow 208