Our Review Article has been published as part of ‘Evolutionary Medicine: A Special Issue’ from eLife. To view the Special Issue, visit https://elifesciences.org/collections/8d9426aa/evolutionary-medicine-a-special-issue. In this article, we argue that host immune strategies, ecology and pathogen prevalence all play crucial roles in allowing spillover, but studying them in isolation is far from ideal given the complex interactions … Continue reading New review paper: Understanding pathogen tolerance in wild animals key to pandemic preparedness

Our lab will have an open position for prospective PhD students interested in exploring the emerging & unique interface of Evolution, Disease and Immunology. Selected candidates will have the opportunity to work in various ongoing projects to understand the ecological patterns and processes of infection and disease in a population; how optimal immune strategies against … Continue reading Open Position for PhD in Evolutionary Biology of Infection & Disease (Application Deadline: November 1st, 2021)

We are very happy to secure some funding for Srijan Seals's Doctoral Dissertation work on Evolution of immune responses against co-infecting pathogens from Multi-Institutional Faculty Interdisciplinary Research Project (MFIRP) scheme of IIT Delhi. In addition to creating exciting experimental evolution lines, we will work very closely with Dr. Ishaan Gupta (IITD) to probe genomic signatures … Continue reading #New funding received for exploring the evolutionary genomics of immunity against co-infecting pathogens

It was great to teach this pre-college Evolutionary Biology & Infectious Disease summer course for school students (7th-11th Grade) on "Darwinian Dilemmas of the Pandemic Century". Very new experience altogether. Enjoyed those open ended discussion/ ultra curiosity on why some animals become carriers of severe disease-causing viruses but do not fall ill themselves? How did … Continue reading Had a fabulous summer course on Evolutionary Biology & Infectious Disease with school students organised by Ashoka_X

In many animals, including humans, males and females respond differently to infection and disease. Why do they do so? Do they have different immunity? How do they evolve such responses? We try to find answers to these most fundamental questions about animal immunity in our recently accepted work in BMC Biology. Using seed beetles as … Continue reading New BMC Biology paper on why sexes differ in immunity and Infection outcomes

Can rapid environmental changes such as climate warming and food scarcity influence how organisms evolve immunity against new infections & disease? What is the genetic basis? If you are interested in such fundamental evolutionary questions and looking for activating your CSIR/ DBT/ICMR Fellowship; contact me for more information or apply here Our lab and projects … Continue reading PhD position (Students with JRF only): Immunity, disease and climate changes

We are repeatedly warned against newer zoonotic diseases (transferred from non-human animals to humans) in future, resulting from our rapid insurgence into natural ecosystems. How/Why do these zoonotic infections arise? Where will they come next? Such understanding will be far from complete unless we start tracking myriad evolutionary interactions of immunity, ecology and life-history of … Continue reading New Preprint- Evolution of pathogen tolerance and emerging infections: A missing experimental paradigm

Super excited & cannot be happier to share the news that Manasven Raina from 'Evolutionary Immunology lab' just received an offer from the prestigious Erasmus Mundus Masters Program in Evolutionary Biology (MEME) with full scholarship. He is among the first few students who joined Ashoka Biology and our lab in 2018. Teaming with Basabi and … Continue reading Manasven gets into the Erasmus Mundus Masters Program in Evolutionary Biology

It is truly exciting to be a part of the #YIM2021 team with Karishma Kaushik (SPPU, Pune), Vasudharani Devanathan (IISER Tirupati), Smita Jain and Shantala Hari Dass (Indiabioscience). As always, we have an exciting line up of speakers and Mentors. Applications from Young Investigators are invited across diverse disciplines of Biology who are less than … Continue reading Boarded the YIM2021 Organising team

Delighted to invite applications for a Junior Research Fellow (JRF) and a Postdoctoral Scientist position in an India Alliance-DBT/Wellcome Trust funded project at Ashoka University. The JRF and the postdoc hired for the project will participate in various experiments, combining experimental evolution of tractable insect models (e.g. fruit flies and beetles) with pathogenic infections to … Continue reading Applications Invited for a Junior Research Fellow and a Postdoctoral Scientist Position