What we do?
We lead the Laboratory of Single-Molecule Biophysics at BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus, Rajasthan, India.
The central question we aim to address revolves around understanding how biomembranes maintain, alter, or reorganize their structures, functions, and dynamic behaviors in response to stress or diverse environmental, chemical, and biological perturbations. These perturbations, ranging from changes in temperature, ionic composition, and pH to interactions with proteins, metabolites, and synthetic agents can modulate membrane organization across multiple length and time scales. Yet the fundamental principles governing how lipid composition, phase behavior, curvature, and molecular interactions collectively determine membrane resilience, adaptability, and failure remain incompletely understood. Addressing this gap is essential for predicting membrane behavior in living systems, engineering robust synthetic membranes and their applications, including drug deliveries, and elucidating the mechanisms underlying membrane‑associated cellular processes and diseases.
To further these investigations, we focus extensively on dye photophysics, customization of fluorescent dyes, and development of novel fluorescent tools at both ensemble and single-molecule levels. Many of these research activities require significant computational work to analyze data and simulate molecular behaviors, which complements our experimental approaches. Our overall methodology combines expertise from chemistry, biology, and physics, utilizing advanced fluorescence spectroscopy and microscopy techniques.
