Pranav Sharma joins the lab as a Lab Aide. Welcome, Pranav!

Seiga Yanagisawa joins the lab as a Postdoctoral Fellow. Welcome, Seiga!

David Castillo joins the lab as a Research Scientist. In addition to driving his own projects, David will oversee and support all research projects within the lab. Welcome, David!

Shabduli won an award for presenting a poster on her work at BioPhest 2023. Congratulations, Shabduli!

Wadhwa Lab was well represented at the first post-covid BioPhest that took place on May 7, 2023. Shabduli, David Vandian, Eric, and Luis presented posters.

Rebecca Osar wrapped up her studies at ASU and will be joining Cornell this fall for a PhD program in Physics. We sent her off with a lab dinner at Cafe Lalibela.

Congratulations, Rebecca. We will miss you in the Wadhwa Lab.

Shabduli, Frances, Eric, Rebecca, and Luis presented posters at the annual retreat of ASU’s Biodesign Institute.

Rebecca won the Department of Physics Research Award for 2023. Congratulations, Rebecca!

Carolina Gogerty joins the lab as a Research Specialist. Before joining us, Carolina was a Research Technician at the DNASU Plasmid Repository. Carolina will help run day-to-day operations and support all research projects within the lab. Welcome, Carolina!

Frances Fuguy joins the lab as an undergraduate researcher. Frances is a microbiology major at Barrett, The Honors College. She will assist Shabduli on studying the interactions of bacteria with surfaces.

David Vandian joins the lab as an undergraduate researcher. David is a triple major in Molecular Biosciences & Biotechnology, Physics, and Linguistics. He will work on quantifying the effect of biochemical perturbations on bacterial swimming motility.

Our new preprint describes the structure and mechanism of sodium-driven stator units from the bacterium Vibrio alginolyticus. This work, led by Haidai Hu in Nicholas Taylor’s lab, solves the puzzle of how stator units select for specific ions (e.g., sodium ions vs protons). Check out the preprint on bioRxiv.

Luis Meneses joins the lab as its first Lab Assistant. Luis is a Biosciences major with a concentration in Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior. Luis will help us get the lab up and running while also conducting independent research projects. Welcome, Luis!

Shabduli has received the Fulton Fellowship from the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. This fellowship recognizes “your extraordinary achievements and in support of your future research.” Congratulations, Shabduli!

Rebecca Osar and Eric Dudebout join the lab as undergraduate researchers. Rebecca is a senior majoring in Physics and Eric is a junior majoring in Biochemistry. Welcome!

Our latest work is now published in Nature Communications. We carried out a detailed first-passage-time analysis of stator remodeling dynamics and show that mechanosensitive remodeling of the bacterial flagellar motor is a a multi-state dynamic process. Check out the paper on Nature Communications website.

Shabduli Sawant has accepted the offer to join the Wadhwa lab as its first graduate student, starting in January 2023. Welcome, Shabduli!

We are live! Navish starts his new position as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics and the Biodesign Center for Mechanisms of Evolution at Arizona State University.

Excited to share our new work, conducted in collaboration with Alberto Sassi and Yuhai Tu, on the dynamics of mechano-adaptation in the bacterial flagellar motor. We performed a detailed statistical analysis of the single binding and unbinding events that enable the flagellar motor to adapt to changes in mechanical load by remodeling its stator. We propose a minimal model consisting of four stator unit states that quantitatively explains multiple features of the experimental data and allows us to determine the transition rates between all four states. Check out the preprint on bioRxiv.

I was selected as an Associate Fellow of the Intersections Science Fellows Symposium. I feel lucky to be included in this wonderful group of scholars who are not only doing cutting-edge research but also making a positive impact on academic culture. Read more here.

Happy to share our new review on the machinery and mechanisms of bacterial motility, published online in Nature Reviews Microbiology. Check out the paper here.

Excited to share our new review on how the stator complex of the bacterial flagellar motor generates torque, published online in Trends in Biochemical Sciences. This effort was spearheaded by Haidai Hu, with contributions from Mònica Santiveri, Howard Berg, Marc Erhardt, and Nicholas Taylor. Check out the paper here.

I gave a virtual talk titled “The bacterial flagellar engine has an automatic gearshift” at the Physics of Living Systems Seminar Series. Thanks to Alex Persat for the kind invitation. The slides used for the talk can be found here.

I gave a virtual talk titled “The bacterial flagellar engine has an automatic gearshift” at the Microscale Ocean Biophysics Seminar Series. Thanks to Marco Polin for the invitation. The slides used for the talk can be found here.

Our latest on the mechanosensitive remodeling of the flagellar motor is out in PNAS. We show that mechano-adaptation in the bacterial flagellar motor is independent of its direction of rotation. Check out the paper on PNAS website.

I gave a talk titled “Does the bacterial flagellar motor have an automatic gearshift?” at the 2021 APS March meeting. The talk was delivered virtually and can be viewed through the meeting website, in the session Y12 Physics of Emergent Protein-Complex Assemblies. The slides used for the talk can be found here.

I am very excited to share this new piece from my postdoc research. We spun bacteria with ultrafast rotating electric fields to learn about how the flagellar motor unbuilds and rebuilds itself. Check out the preprint on bioRxiv.

I received a five year K99/R00 award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences at the NIH. This award will provide me with two years of funding for postdoctoral research and three years of funding for my future independent laboratory. I am very grateful to the NIH for the support.