MFCEM Dialogues #14

by

Prof. Krishna Rajarathnam,
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Sealy Center for Structural Biology, The University of Texas, USA

on

Chemokine-neutrophil axis in health and disease: insights from structural biology and animal models

1 April 2025

Prof. Krishna Rajarathnam majored in Chemistry from IIT Madras followed by his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Davis in the USA. After his post-doctoral research at the University of Alberta, he joined the University of Texas as a faculty member. Prof. Rajarathnam is an accomplished researcher with more than two decades of experience in the field of structural biology and biophysics. His laboratory is primarily interested in understanding the molecular mechanisms by which chemokines activate GPCR receptors and bind sulphated glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) to orchestrate in-vivo leukocyte recruitment to the infected tissue and activate leukocytes for microbial killing at the target site.

In his talk Prof. Rajarathnam shared some of the studies from his lab that looks into how optimal gradients determined by the ratio of chemokine between its free and GAG-bound monomer and dimer are formed, and how these are critical for successful neutrophil response. He further discussed how under pathological conditions, suboptimal gradients, resulting from either increased or reduced chemokine expression, skew neutrophil phenotype in a manner that is detrimental to the host.

Post his talk, Prof. Rajarathnam interacted with students in freewheeling conversation where he shared his journey from being a graduate student at IIT Bombay to having spent more than 20 fruitful years as an academician and professor. He also advised the graduate students on how to go about seeking postdoctoral positions in the US and elsewhere.