Saumya Agrawal

Introduction:
I have completed my B.Sc (Botany and Chemistry) and M.Sc. (Bioinformatics) degrees from the University of Allahabad, India. Then I sailed to the other side of the equator to do my Ph.D. in the rDNAome lab at Massey University, New Zealand where I worked on an unwanted (but vital for cell survival) region of the human genome, the nucleolar organizer region. I sailed back to the native side of the equator to join ACGT as a postdoc and become a member of the FANTOM consortium. As part of FANTOM6, I am trying to understand the biological role of long non-coding RNAs in the human cells. The main focus of my project is to the determine the potential function of non-coding RNAs in different cell types using three-dimensional genome conformation information. I am biased towards studying the genomic regions that are customarily defined as “junkyard” or the transcripts that are conveniently labeled as “noise”. In general, I am always excited to learn more about any scientific study that explains a fundamental phenomenon.

Contact details: saumya.agrawal@riken.jp

Talks:

  1. “Functional annotation of long non-coding RNAs based on their spatial localization” at The Biology of Genome, CSHL, New York, USA, May, 2019
  2. “Association between Three-Dimensional Localization and Function of Long Noncoding RNAs” at Chromatin Architecture and Chromosome Organization, Keystone meeting, Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, March, 2018.
  3. “Identifying long noncoding RNAs partners in human cells” at Human Genome Meeting, Yokohama, Japan, March 2018.
  4. “Identifying long noncoding RNAs partners in human cells” at RIKEN Trainee session, Human Genome Meeting, March 2018.
  5. “The role of long non-coding RNA 3D nuclear localization on determining their function“, Consortium of Biological Sciences, Kobe, Japan, December 2017
  6. “Characterization of the human nucleolar organizer regions” at Institute of Natural and Mathematical Sciences, Massey University, New Zealand, April 2014

Publications:

Google scholar page

Awards:

  1. Letter of Appreciation from the President of RIKEN, 2018.
  2. Best poster award at Human Genome Meeting, Yokohama, Japan, 2018.
  3. Merit certificate for Master of Sciences in Bioinformatics at University of Allahabad, India, 2007.

Scholarship and Travel grant:

  1. Travel grant from the New Zealand Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 2012.
  2. Institute of Natural Sciences Doctoral Scholarship 2009-2013.