Debraj Ghose
About
I am broadly interested in how biological structures self-organize and perform computations. More specifically, I am developing a research program to understand and control the collective behavior of human immune cells. By doing so, I hope to build programmable biological robots that fight intruders like infections or tumors. This work is being pursued in Don Ingber's lab at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University.
Previously, I got my PhD from the Lew lab at Duke University where I studied how eukaryotic cells respond to chemical gradients. To uncover gradient sensing mechanisms, I combined yeast genetics, quantitative live cell imaging, and mathematical modeling. My colleagues and I mechanistically described dynamics of a cell's polarized front, discovered that the polarized front can perform chemotaxis up chemical gradients, and theoretically predicted mechanisms underlying chemotactic bias (Ghose & Lew, 2020, Ghose et al, 2021).
Outside the lab, I enjoy painting, playing guitar, and riding single-wheeled things.
Publications
Ghose D, Elston T, Lew D. Orientation of cell polarity by chemical gradients. Annual review of biophysics. 2022 May 9;51:431-51. [Download/Link]
Ghose D, Jacobs K, Ramirez S, Elston T, Lew D. Chemotactic movement of a polarity site enables yeast cells to find their mates. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2021 Jun 1;118(22):e2025445118. [Download/Link]
Clark-Cotton MR, Henderson NT, Pablo M, Ghose D, Elston TC, Lew DJ. Exploratory polarization facilitates mating partner selection in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Molecular biology of the cell. 2021 May 1;32(10):1048-63. [Download/Link]
Ghose D, Lew D. Mechanistic insights into actin-driven polarity site movement in yeast. Molecular biology of the cell. 2020 May 1;31(10):1085-102. (MBoC Highlight and Nominee for Paper of the Year 2020) [Cover/Download/Link]
Henderson NT, Pablo M, Ghose D, Clark-Cotton MR, Zyla TR, Nolen J, Elston TC, Lew DJ. Ratiometric GPCR signaling enables directional sensing in yeast. PLoS biology. 2019 Oct 17;17(10):e3000484. [Download/Link]
Contact
firstname.lastname@wyss.harvard.edu