I am Deepankar, but I usually go by the shorter version: “Deep”. I am a PhD student enrolled at the University of Turku in Finland. I am actively involved in several projects, predominantly in the field of Cancer Genetics, which are aimed at understanding molecular mechanisms of different human cancers and identifying opportunities for developing targeted therapeutics.
During my PhD, I developed a new high-throughput screen to discern activating mutations in kinases by constructing a cDNA library encompassing all possible point-mutations in the said kinase. So far, the screen has been used to study the EGFR family of RTKs (EGFR, HER2, HER3, and HER4) and identify activating mutations and assess their druggability with various TKIs. Using my screening workflow I am also investigating therapeutic resistance to ERBB-targeted inhibitors.
I have also developed a collection of webtools using R and shiny, some of which are hosted at https://eleniuslabtools.utu.fi.
Here’s a shorter version of my CV (PDF).
PhD in Medical Biochemistry and Genetics, 2015 - now
University of Turku, Finland
MSc in Bioinformatics, 2014
University of Turku, Finland
B.Tech in Biotechnology, 2012
Amity University, India
Conducting Functional Genetics research at the laboratory of Prof. Klaus Elenius. My responsibilities included:
ERBB4 is a member of the ERBB family of oncogenes that is frequently mutated in different cancer types but the functional impact of its somatic mutations remains unknown. Here, we have analyzed the function of over 8,000 randomly mutated ERBB4 variants in an unbiased functional genetics screen. The data indicate the presence of rare activating ERBB4 mutations in cancer, with potential to be targeted with clinically approved pan-ERBB inhibitors.
Personal Grants
Travel Grant
Travel Grant
Travel grant
Debian, Raspberry Pi
Shell, R, python
I ❤️ Primes!
Pihole, DNS resolvers, FOSS
Equities, ETFs, #Essentialism
The Office, Dark, Chuck