Biography
My academic training and research expertise have provided me with an excellent background in chemistry and biochemistry. My research interest involves the identification and characterization of biomolecules such as proteins and glycans using mass spectrometry techniques and utilizing this information to understand biomolecular deregulation in disease models. I have received guidance from international-leaders in glycobiology, mass-spectrometry, and cancer biology, which enabled me to develop expertise covering many bio- analytical techniques, most importantly advanced mass-spectrometry to study glycoconjugates in disease models such as cancer and neurodegenerative disorders. I have ample hands-on experience in modern molecular and cellular techniques. I forayed into colorectal cancer (CRC) research during my doctoral studies at Macquarie University (MQ) under the primary supervision of Dr. Morten Thaysen-Andersen, an internationally recognized researcher in Glycobiology. During my Ph.D., I developed a wide range of expertise to investigate colorectal cancer cell lines and patient tissue samples using various mass spectrometry proteomics and glycomics. I became devoted to make an impact in the field of cancer evident by my scientific contributions to the field, including my frequently cited CRC paper (Sethi MK et al., J Proteome Res, 2014, IF 4.3, 65 citations, Sethi MK et al., J proteomics, 2015, IF 3.5, 45 citation).
After my Ph.D., I was offered a postdoctoral research fellowship at Boston University (BU), MA, with Prof. Joseph Zaia, an internationally acclaimed leader in mass spectrometry (MS) and Glycoscience. Currently I am an Instructor in Prof. Zaia’s lab. At BU, I have learned (and further developed) MS-based techniques of proteoglycans (PGs) and glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) (Raghunathan R, Sethi MK et al., Methods X, 2019) and applied these techniques to disease models in neurodegeneration including Schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease as evidenced by my recent publications (e.g., Chen J, Kawamura T, Sethi MK et al., Sci Rep, 2017). My h-index is 8, i10-index is 7, and I have been cited a total of 258 times with year-on-year increases in the citation rate demonstrating my maturing scientific profile (Google Scholar, March 2020). I have taught undergraduates as a laboratory demonstartor during my Ph.D., and I have mentored two undergraduates, one graduate, and one Ph.D student demonstrating my teaching and mentoring abilities. My long-term career objective is to establish an analytical glycobiology research group with a focus on unraveling the molecular mechanisms in disease models.