Vidita Vaidya

Last updated

Vidita Vaidya
Vidita Vaidya.jpg
NationalityIndian
Alma mater St. Xavier's College, Mumbai
Yale University
Awards Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, 2015

National Bioscience Award for Career Development, 2012 Fellow, Indian National Science Academy

Contents

Infosys Prize in Life Sciences, 2022
Scientific career
Fields Neuroscience with a focus on studying the neurocircuitry of emotion
Institutions Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai
Doctoral advisor Professor Ronald Duman at Yale University

Vidita Vaidya is an Indian neuroscientist and professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. Her primary areas of research are neuroscience and molecular psychiatry. [1]

Early life

Vidita's parents, Dr. Rama Vaidya and Dr. Ashok Vaidya are clinician scientists, and her uncle Dr. Akhil Vaidya (a Malaria Parasitologist) were a big motivation for her to pursue a career in research, with a focus on Neuroscience. Her father is a clinical pharmacologist, and her mother is an endocrinologist. She was also influenced by reading about the life and work of the primatologists Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall, during her teenage years. [2]

Education

Vidita received her undergraduate degree from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai in Life Sciences and Biochemistry. She obtained her doctoral degree in Neuroscience at Yale University with Professor Ronald Duman, whose mentorship shaped her research career. Her postdoctoral work was done at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden with Professor Ernest Arenas and at the University of Oxford in UK with Professor David Grahame-Smith. [1] [3]

Career

She joined the Department of Biological Sciences, TIFR at the age of 29, in March, 2000, as a principal investigator. [4] She has been a Wellcome Trust Overseas Senior Research Fellow and an associate of the Indian Academy of Sciences from 2000 to 2005. [5] Vidita studies the neurocircuits that regulate emotion and how these mechanisms are influenced by life experiences, and antidepressants. She also investigates how changes in brain circuits form the basis of psychiatric disorders like depression and how early life experiences contribute to persistent alterations in behaviour. One of the focus areas of her research group is the role of the serotonin2A receptor both as a target of serotonergic psychedelics that exert powerful effects on mood-related behavior, and also in how it contributes to shaping the long-lasting consequences of early adversity. She was awarded the National Bioscientist Award in 2012, the prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in 2015 in the medical sciences category [6] and is a Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, National Academy of Sciences, India and the Indian Academy of Sciences. She received the J.C. Bose Fellowship from SERB, Govt. of India in 2021 and the Infosys Prize in Life-Sciences in 2022 .

Vidita's research has also been centered around the role of serotonin in shaping neurocircuits of emotion during critical periods of postnatal development and on the mechanism of action of fast acting antidepressant treatments. [7] Her lab work is conducted on lab rats and mice. Vidita's particular field of interest lies in understanding how individuals develop vulnerability or resilience to stress-associated psychopathology. [4]

In January 2020, Vidita joined the editorial board of The European Journal of Neuroscience (EJN) as one of a panel of four new senior editors. EJN is the official journal of the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS).

Features in Books and Videos

Vidita has been featured in Lilavathi's Daughters, [8] a compilation of biographical essays on Indian women scientists, and on "The Life in Science" blog. [9] In 2015, she gave a TEDx talk at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai in which she spoke about how stress can change our neurological makeup. [TEDx 1] She has also been featured in TIFRs "Chai and Why". [10]

Achievements

Her work has garnered the 2015 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology for Medical Sciences. She is also a recipient of the National Bioscience Award for Career Development in 2012. [11] She received the Nature Award for Mentorship in Science, 2019, in the mid-career category. [12] She received the Infosys Prize in Life-Sciences in 2022 for her fundamental contributions to understanding brain mechanisms that underlie mood disorders such as anxiety and depression, including signals engaged by the neurotransmitter serotonin in causing persistent changes in behavior induced by early life stress and the role of serotonin in energy regulation in brain cells.

Publications

Her site at TIFR hosts a complete list of her publications. [13]

Personal life

Vidita's research career was supported by her late husband, Ajit Mahadevan, who worked in the area of impact investing. They have a daughter, Alina Vaidya Mahadevan. In her spare time, Vidita likes to travel, read, and dance. [2]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shiraz Minwalla</span> Indian physicist

Shiraz Naval Minwalla is an Indian theoretical physicist and string theorist. He is a faculty member in the Department of Theoretical Physics at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. Prior to his present position, Minwalla was a Harvard Junior Fellow and subsequently an assistant professor at Harvard University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tata Institute of Fundamental Research</span> Public research institute in Mumbai, India

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) is an Indian Research Institute under the Department of Atomic Energy of the Government of India. It is a public deemed university located at Navy Nagar, Colaba in Mumbai. It also has campus in Bangalore, International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS), and an affiliated campus in Serilingampally near Hyderabad. TIFR conducts research primarily in the natural sciences, mathematics, the biological sciences and theoretical computer science.

Shubha Tole' is an Indian neuroscientist, professor and principal Investigator at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, India. Her research investigates the development and evolution of the mammalian brain. In 2014, she won the Infosys Prize in the Life Sciences category.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mahan Mj</span> Indian mathematician and monk of the Ramakrishna Order

Mahan Mj, also known as Mahan Maharaj and Swami Vidyanathananda, is an Indian mathematician and monk of the Ramakrishna Order. He is currently Professor of Mathematics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai. He is a recipient of the 2011 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in mathematical sciences and the Infosys Prize 2015 for Mathematical Sciences. He is best known for his work in hyperbolic geometry, geometric group theory, low-dimensional topology and complex geometry.

Amit Prakash Sharma is an Indian parasitologist and Former Director of National Institute of Malaria Research, New Delhi. He is known for his studies on the disease of malaria and is an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy, The World Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, India. He has more than 220 peer-reviewed international publications in top science journals including Nature, Cell Press, Science, The Lancet Group, British Medical Journal, PLOS and Journal of Biological Chemistry. He has been awarded the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in Biological Sciences, JC Bose Fellowship, Ranbaxy Science Research Award, Infosys Science Award in Biological Sciences, Om Prakash Bhasin Award in Biological Sciences and Lakshmipat Singhania- IIM Lucknow National Leadership Award.

Rajan Sankaranarayanan is an Indian biologist and outstanding scientist at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad. He was born in Madras. He pursued his Master's degree in Madura College of Madurai Kamaraj University (MKU) followed by his Ph.D. in Indian Institute of Science (IISc).

Chetan Eknath Chitnis is an Indian scientist in the field of malaria research. He is the head of the Malaria Parasite Biology and Vaccines Unit at the Institut Pasteur in Paris and an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences (2009) as well as Indian National Science Academy (2014). He received the Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar Award in 2004 and the Infosys Prize in Life Sciences 2010. Chitnis is the former principal investigator of the malaria research group at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) in New Delhi.

Satyajit Mayor (born 1963) is an Indian biologist. He serves as director of the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore. Mayor is the former director of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine (inStem) at Bangalore, which has a focus on the study of stem cell and regenerative biology.

Yamuna Krishnan is a professor at the Department of Chemistry, University of Chicago, where she has worked since August 2014. She was born to P.T. Krishnan and Mini in Parappanangadi, in the Malappuram district of Kerala, India. She was earlier a Reader in National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bangalore, India. Krishnan won the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for science and technology, the highest science award in India in the year 2013 in the Chemical Science category.

Rama Govindarajan is an Indian scientist specialized in the field of fluid dynamics. She previously worked at the Engineering Mechanics Unit of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research from 1998 to 2012 and as a professor at the TIFR Hyderabad Centre for Interdisciplinary Sciences from 2012 to 2016. As of 2019 she is working as a professor at International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS), Bengaluru. Govindarajan is a recipient of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award for the year 2007.

Roop Mallik is an Indian biophysicist who works on nanoscale molecular motor proteins that transport material such as viruses, mitochondria, endosomes etc. inside living cells. The motors, such as kinesin and dynein generate forces of pico-newton order to carry our various cellular processes namely cell division, vesicular transport, endocytosis, molecular tethering etc. His lab is working to understand how motor proteins help in degradation and clearance of pathogens, and also how these motors work inside the liver to maintain systemic lipid homeostasis in the animal. Mallik is currently a professor at the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.

Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay is an Indian computer scientist specializing in computational biology. A professor at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, she is a Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize winner in Engineering Science for 2010, IInfosys Prize 2017 laureate in the Engineering and Computer Science category and TWAS Prize winner for Engineering Sciences in 2018. Her research is mainly in the areas of evolutionary computation, pattern recognition, machine learning and bioinformatics. Since 1 August 2015, she has been the Director of the Indian Statistical Institute, and she would oversee the functioning of all five centres of Indian Statistical Institute located at Kolkata, Bangalore, Delhi, Chennai, and Tezpur besides several other Statistical Quality Control & Operation Research Units spread across India. She is the first woman Director of the Indian Statistical Institute. Currently she is on the Prime Ministers' Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council. In 2022 she was given the Padma Shri award for Science and Engineering by the Government of India.

Kalobaran Maiti is an Indian physicist specialising in condensed matter physics and materials science. He obtained his MSc degree from Rajabazar Science College and PhD degree from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He was awarded the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology in 2010, the highest science award in India, in the physical sciences category for his contribution in the field of very high resolution photoelectron spectroscopy in understanding the physics of metal-insulator transition, charge density wave and Kondo systems. He is also a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neena Gupta (mathematician)</span> Indian mathematician

Neena Gupta is a professor at the Statistics and Mathematics Unit of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Kolkata. Her primary fields of interest are commutative algebra and affine algebraic geometry.

Ghanshyam Swarup is an Indian molecular biologist, a J. C. Bose National Fellow and the head of the Ghanshyam Swarup Research Group of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology. He is known for his studies on glaucoma and the discovery of protein tyrosine phosphatase, a new protein influencing the regulation of cell proliferation. Swarup is an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, the Indian National Science Academy and the National Academy of Sciences, India. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 1996, for his contributions to biological sciences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Upinder Singh Bhalla</span>

Upinder Singh Bhalla is an Indian computational neuroscientist, academic and a professor at National Centre for Biological Sciences of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. He is known for his studies on neuronal and synaptic signalling in memory and olfactory coding using computational and experimental methods and is an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 2007, for his contributions to biological sciences. The Infosys Science Foundation awarded him the Infosys Prize 2017 in Life Sciences for his pioneering contributions to the understanding of the brain's computational machinery.

Echur Varadadesikan Sampathkumaran is an Indian condensed matter physicist and a Distinguished Professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. Known for his research on the thermal and transport behaviour of magnetic systems, Sampathkumaran is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies viz. Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy and National Academy of Sciences, India as well as The World Academy of Sciences. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to physical sciences in 1999.

Gattamraju Ravindra Kumar is an Indian laser physicist and a senior professor of Nuclear and Atomic Physics at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. Known for his research on Ultrashort pulse and Warm dense matter, Kumar is an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to physical sciences in 2003. He is also a recipient of the B. M. Birla Science Prize and Infosys Prize.

Anish Ghosh is an Indian mathematician specialising in ergodic theory, Lie groups and number theory. He is a Professor in the School of Mathematics of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai. He was awarded the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology in Mathematical Sciences in the year 2021. Anish Ghosh is also a part of the INFOSYS-Chandrasekharan Virtual Centre for Random Geometry which is a group of scientists at TIFR Mumbai and ICTS Bengaluru working on topics related to random geometry.

Vatsala Thirumalai is a scientist at Neural Circuits and Development Laboratory, National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bengaluru. She secured B Tech degree in biotechnology from Anna University, Chennai and PhD degree in neuroscience from Brandeis University, Waltham, MA. She was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY and the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD.

References

  1. 1 2 "TIFR - Principal Investigator" . Retrieved 20 March 2014.
  2. 1 2 Vaidya, Vidita (29 August 2016). "Interview with AsianScientist". Asian Scientist.
  3. ↑ "Vidita A Vaidya - Info". www.researchgate.net. Retrieved 4 February 2017.
  4. 1 2 TLoS (30 May 2016). "Vidita Vaidya Gets Into Your Head". The Life of Science. Retrieved 4 February 2017.
  5. ↑ "Former Associates". Indian Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 16 July 2016.
  6. ↑ "List of recipients" (PDF). Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize (SSB) for Science and Technology 2015. Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize. Retrieved 30 October 2015.
  7. ↑ junoontheatre (26 April 2015). "The Social Brain: Discoveries and Shared Delights with Prof. Vidita Vaidya" . Retrieved 4 February 2017.
  8. ↑ "Women in Science IAS - Vidita" (PDF). Retrieved 20 March 2014.
  9. ↑ "Vidita Vaidya gets into your head". The Life of Science. 29 May 2016. Retrieved 17 July 2016.
  10. ↑ Vaidya, Vidita. "Molecules that modulate your mood". YouTube.
  11. ↑ "Awardees of N-BIOS for the year 2012" (PDF). AWARDEES OF NATIONAL BIOSCIENCE AWARDS FOR CAREER DEVELOPMENT. Department of Biotechnology, India. Retrieved 30 October 2015.
  12. ↑ Dance, Amber (6 February 2020). "What the best mentors do". Nature. doi:10.1038/d41586-020-00351-7. PMID   33542485. S2CID   214423534.
  13. ↑ "Publications". Tifr.res.in. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
Reference group
  1. ↑ Vaidya, Vidita. "TEDx Talk". YouTube.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.