Assistant Professor, Ramanujan Fellow and Assistant Professor, Jamia Hamdard, Institute of Molecular Medicine, New Delhi, India

Dr. Akhil Varshney, PhD, is a Ramanujan Fellow and Assistant Professor at Jamia Hamdard Institute of Molecular Medicine. His comprehensive molecular and cell biology background began when he was working on his Ph.D. at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. There, his roots and desire to understand molecular and cellular events developed, as he explored the function of telomerase in cancer cell proliferation and survival. This research then led him to aDBT-Research Associate (national fellowship from Govt of India) at National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi, India. Much of his work was focused on developing a novel real time PCR-based method for studying the role of miRNA in DNA damage and signaling. Then, he ventured to the University of Kentucky where he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Ophthalmology and subsequently moved with group to University of Virginia, where he was Postdoctoral Research Associate. His work focused on investigating the role of retrotransposon in a healthy versus diseased eye. He worked closely with Human and Mouse Retinal Pigment Epithelial to identify the effects of LINE-1 and Aluretrotransposon on Retinal Pigment Epithelial behavior by looking at the biochemical outcomes of these events.