Our Faculty

Dr. Ajay Nair’s research focuses on transcription regulation, a key first step in decoding the information encoded in the stable but inert DNA strands into the dynamic process of life in a cell. The transcription regulation models of complex biological diseases such as cancer and fibrosis help to identify their key regulators and target them for treatment. The transcription regulation program in a cell or in disease integrates the microenvironmental signals coming to the signaling pathways and controls the downstream metabolic and related pathways to ensure the survival of the diseased cells or tissues. Therefore, key transcription regulators and their co-regulators are potent drug targets for therapy.

Dr. Ajay Nair joined Amrita School of Biotechnology in 2026 after his Research Fellowship from Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Harvard University (Boston, USA) where he developed computational approaches to identify mechanisms of cancer metastasis. His Postdoc was from Department of Systems Biology and Medicine, Columbia University Irvine Medical Center, Columbia University (New York, USA), where he developed computational and experimental approaches for identifying disease-driving master regulators using single-cell omics and drug screening technologies in cancer and fibrosis. Before that, he did a Joint PhD from IIT Bombay (India) and Monash University (Australia), where he developed novel computational approaches for incorporating biological prior knowledge into transcription regulatory network inference. He completed his Master’s in Electrical Engineering from IIT Delhi with first rank and Bachelor’s from Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam.

His research has contributed to our understanding of liver fibrosis, liver cancer, ovarian cancer, gastric cancer, metastatic progression, COVID-19 lung pathology, and tumor microenvironment biology through integrative systems-level analyses. His work has appeared in leading journals including Nature, Cell, Science Translational Medicine, Cancer Cell, Cancer Discovery, Nature Communications, Cancer Research, and Gastroenterology.

He has been the recipient of numerous fellowships, grants, and awards. He is an active reviewer of multiple international journals and has given multiple invited talks at international conferences.