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Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences

Dr Kavitha

Dr. Kavitha Rao Sarvepalli

Assistant Professor

Dr. Kavitha Sarvepalli is an experimental biologist with 10+ years of research experience in developmental biology, cell biology and genetics in both plants and animal model systems. She obtained her PhD degree from the Indian Institute of Science on genetics of leaf development. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Cleveland, USA, where she worked on mechanism of defense gene regulation by global chromatin organizer proteins. She was an awardee of DST Women Scientist WOS‑A fellowship, under which she combined her interests in developmental and cellular biology to study growth-defense trade-off in plants. She has worked at the Undergraduate Program at the Indian Institute of Science as UG Instructor, before joining MSRUAS in July 2022.

Qualifications

  • PhD in Biological Sciences

    Indian Institute of Science

  • MS in Biological Sciences

    Indian Institute of Science

  • B.Sc. (Hons) Biochemistry

    Delhi University

Experience

Total Years of Experience: 17.36 years 

Training Experience

  • 1. Arabidopsis and Drosophila genetics, developmental and cell biology

2. Microbiology and Molecular Biology techniques

3. Analysis of gene expression in diverse model species by a variety of molecular biology techniques, including RT-qPCR, in situ hybridization, northern blot, reporter gene analysis etc.

4. Analysis of DNA-protein interactions by electrophoretic mobility shift assay, yeast one-hybrid assay and chromatin immune-precipitation (ChIP) assay

5. Analysis of high-throughput data such as RNA-Seq and ChIP-Seq using the CLC Bio software suite

6. Analysis of short- and long-range DNA-DNA contacts by Chromatin Conformation Capture (3C) assay

  • Mechanisms of stress response and stress tolerance in model plant species and in Drosophila melanogaster

Ph.D. Dissertation: Role of TCP4 transcription factor in the maturation programs of Arabidopsis thaliana

National Conference Papers

  • Participated and presented a poster entitled ​“Modulation of organ size by altering the activity of TCP4 transcription factor in Arabidopsis thaliana” in the 79th Annual Meeting of the Society of Biological Chemists held at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India (December 2010)
  • Participated and presented a poster in the 76th Annual Meeting of the Society of Biological Chemists held at the Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati, India (November 2007)

International Conference Papers

  • Participated and presented a poster entitled ​“The TCP4 transcription factor of Arabidopsis thaliana accelerates multiple aspects of plant maturation” in the Keystone Symposium on Evolutionary Developmental Biology held at Tahoe City, California, USA (February 2011)
  • Participated and presented a poster in the 43rd JSDB Annual meeting at Kyoto, Japan (June 2010)

International Journal Papers

  • Rath M, Challa KR, Sarvepalli K and Nath U. CINCINNATA-Like TCP Transcription Factors in Cell Growth — An Expanding Portfolio. Front Plant Sci. 2022 Feb 22;13:825341. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.825341.
  • Sarvepalli K, Das Gupta M, Challa KR and Nath U – Molecular cartography of leaf development – Role of transcription factors. (2019) Current Opinion in Plant Biology 47:22 – 31.
  • Sarvepalli K* and Nath U* — The CIN-TCP transcription factors – transiting cell proliferation in plants (2018) IUBMB Life 70:718 – 731. * Co-Corresponding author. Chosen to feature in the Editor’s highlight of the issue.
  • Klebanow LR, Peshel EC, Schuster AT, De K, Sarvepalli K, Lemieux ME, Lenoir JJ, Moore AW, McDonald JA, Longworth MS (2016) Drosophila Condensin II subunit, Chromosome Associated Protein-D3, regulates cell fate determination through non-cell autonomous signaling. Development 143:2791 – 2802.
  • Schuster AT, Sarvepalli K, Longworth MS (2013) Condensin II restricts retrotransposon mobilization in somatic cells. PLoS Genetics 10:e1003879.
  • Sarvepalli K, Nath U (2011) Interaction of TCP4-mediated growth module with phytohormones. Plant Signaling and Behaviour 6:1440 – 1443.
  • Sarvepalli K, Nath U (2011) Hyper-activation of the TCP4 transcription factor in Arabidopsis thaliana accelerates multiple aspects of plant maturation. Plant Journal 67:595 – 607.
  • Aggarwal P, Padmanabhan B, Bhat A, Sarvepalli K, Sadhale PP, Nath U (2011) The TCP4 transcription factor of Arabidopsis blocks cell division in yeast at G1→S transition. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications 410:276 – 81.

  • 2019 — DBT-IISc Partnership Program RA (III) at the Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
  • 2016 – 2019 — DST WOS‑A Postdoctoral fellowship from Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development
  • 2003 – 2009 — Research Fellowship from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Karnataka
  • 2005 - Selected for Shyama Prasad Mukherjee test, as top 20% awardees in the National Eligibility Test (NET), Bangalore, Karnataka
  • 2003 - 2nd position in the Undergraduate Program merit list in Biochemistry, Delhi University, New Delhi

  • Society of Biological Chemists (India)

    Life member