ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am completing my sixth year at IGIB when I am writing this acknowledgement. This journey of my PhD where I have given most productive 6 years of my life has taught me a lot of things and transformed me as a person. Most important lessons I have learnt from here is, a never give up attitude, and how to rise after repeated failure thanks to crystallography. I have started my PhD in crystallography area and ending it in a genomics area. This would not have been possible in any other institute in India. So I am greatly indebted to my research institute IGIB and all the people who supported me during my journey of PhD. Although words might not be enough to express my gratitude towards all the people who helped me during this journey but I will still try.

First, I would like to give my sincere regards to Dr. Rakesh Sharma, for registering me as a PhD student under his guidance and for his expert scientific advices.

I would like to acknowledge most important person for my training and PhD my mentor Dr. Bhupesh Taneja, it would not have been possible for me to finish my work without his constant support, guidance and motivation. His professional skills and strong background in structural biology helped me defining and completing my PhD objectives. Most important lessons I learnt from him apart from science is how to “keep calm and carry on” in adverse situation. I really appreciate the way he gave me scientific thinking space outside his core expertise, and his eagerness and willingness to support me for learning novel techniques through collaborations.

I thank Dr. , Dr. Sheetal Gandotra, Dr. , Dr. Vinod Scaria, Dr. Ashish Ganguli (IMTech) and Dr. Sridhar Sivasubbu for their expert scientific advice on their core area and helped me in experimental design and completion of those experiements using their lab facilities.

I would like to acknowledge Dr. for her interesting scientific inputs, advices. Discussion with her ranging from scientific to social problems always gave me a new and interesting perspective. I am also thankfull to Dr. Pillai for allowing me to use her amazing book collections. I sincerely express my regards to Prof. Samir K. Brahmachari, Ex-D.G., CSIR, and former Director, Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology. It is my pleasure to express my sincere thanks to Dr. Rajesh Gokhle; Director, Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi for making available all the infrastructural facilities required for the successful completion of work. I really appreciate efforts of our director and have seen how our institute’s scientific temperament has evolved under his able leadership.

I would like to thanks all the faculties at IGIB specially Dr. S Ramachandran, Dr. , Dr. , Dr. Vivek Rao and Dr. Kaushik Chakraborty for allowing me to utilize their lab facilities.

I was really lucky to have very intelligent peers around, I have learnt a lot from peer learning approach. I would like to mention few intelligent peers who taught me a lot of things. First of all I would like to thank Parashar and EBI-EMBL course work, they taught me NGS data analysis from start, Parashar’s teaching skills were really commendable. I would like to thanks Manika, Ankur, DJ, Santosh and Yogendra for teaching me and helping me with their expert skills like AFM, DLS, CD, ChIP & Mycobacterial work. I would like to acknowledge help from Lalit with chemicals, kits and other scientific advices.

I would also like to thanks Satya and Amrita Ramkumar for starting a Life of PI initiative at our institutes where eminent scientist from India and around the globe came and talk about their stories, their failures and how they overcome their failures this was really inspiring during down time of my PhD.

I would like thanks Saurabh Vig, my pillar of strength in IGIB he was always there for me at any time anywhere, I would also like thanks my friends from Mall road campus, Kirandeep, Ajay, Anshika, Ruchi and Shashank, MD lab members, and YSingh lab members.

I am really thankful to AKM trio (Anusha, Kaurab & Manoj) for their great company and scientific inputs and anytime help.

I am also very thankful to my current and ex lab members specially Atul, Dilip, and Siddharth, for their helpful and cordial environment in lab. I would also like to thank SC lab members, BP lab members, SG lab members and SM lab members for their help. The financial assistance from Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, India for experiments and fellowship is gratefully acknowledged. I am thankful to CSIR-IGIB PME division and HR division staff Dr. Jyoti Yadav, Dr. Girija Nair, Mr. Bharat Ratan Gupta, Mr. Vishal Goyal, Mr. Nikhil Shankar, Mr. Virendra for smooth administrative functioning of student’s affairs. I am also very thankful to Pune University for registration and their administrative staff for smooth functioning of registration and submission related processes.

A special mention for my alma mater Maharaja Sayajirao University (MSU), I would like to thank my teachers from Zoology department and Microbiology department for their wonderful and inspiring teaching.. I would also like to thank all my MSU friends specially Sarita, Shalmali, Rini, Shweta, Samay, DD, Sahir, Dinesh and Nikhil.

Many other people made my life easier at IGIB with laughter, some advice or an interesting conversation. I enjoyed wonderful moments and fun with Hemant, Bharat, Rohit, Gopal, Bhanwar, Bhavneet, Smita, Kiran, Ajit Gunjan, Dhirendra, Anupam, Sourav Ghosh, Kuldeep, Sagar, Vinay, Kannan, Soundher, Suman Da, Ram Sir, Akinchan, and all members of IGIB football team, cricket team and IGIB gamers

I want to thank my Uncle Rajesh Mishra and his NGO (ARCH); he is the person who inculcated scientific thinking in me from my childhood. I would really like to say thanks to my sweet sisters Vidushi and Lekha for their love and care. I am really very thankful to my extended family specially foi, fua, dada, dadi, nana, nani, and mama and mashis, and all cousins. They were a real support during this time.

I would also like to thank those, who were important directly or indirectly in completing my thesis and also expressing my apologies that I could not mention them personally here.

Above all, I thank my father Suresh Mishra and Mother Rekha Mishra for their innumerable sacrifices, encouragement and motivation and for their constant belief in me.

Arpit Mishra