Amitabha Nandi
Associate Professor
Photograph: 
Email: 
amitabha@phy.iitb.ac.in
Office: 

229-G

Research Interests: 

Physics of Living Matter Group

 

The research in our group focuses on the physics of living matter. We study dynamic processes at the cellular and tissue scales and their role during morphogenesis, namely, the process of development of an organism. To do this, we use theoretical methods from equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, and nonlinear dynamics.

 

Research Topics:

  • Active and passive transport inside cells
  • Physics of morphogenesis
  • Collective phenomena in biological active matter

 

Current Team Members

 

Ph.D. students

  • Abhijit S.
  • Hillol Burman (jointly with Dibyendu Das)
  • Padmalochini S. (jointly with Raghunath Chelakkot and Mandar I. Inamdar)
  • Pampa Dey (jointly with Punit Parmananda)

Postdoctoral Fellows

  • Priya Chakraborty (jointly with Mithun K. Mitra)

Post-graduate/Undergraduate Students
  • Anurag Pendse (jointly with Raghunath Chelakkot)
  • Atharva Tambade
  • Jason Gomez
  • Jeremy Miranda


Alumni

 

Postdoctoral Fellows

  • R. K. Singh (currently Postdoc at Bar-Illan University, Ramat Gan, Israel)

Ph.D. students

  • Indrani Nayak (co-supervisor: Dibyendu Das, currently Postdoc at Battelle Center for Mathematical Medicine, Columbus, OH, USA) (Thesis Title: First passage processes in confined space)
  • Monika Sanoria (co-supervisor: Raghunath Chelakkot, currently Postdoc at University of California Merced, CA, USA) (Thesis Title: Effect of interaction softness on the collective properties of active Brownian particles)

Post-graduate/Undergraduate Students

  • Aayush Khare (Ph.D. student at Penn State University, PA, USA)
  • Aditya Sharma (Engineer, S/W Platform R&D Lab, Samsung Electronics, Suwon, South Korea)
  • Ajay Bansal (Ph.D. student at NCBS, Bangalore, KA, India)
  • Anjali Yadav (Ph.D. student at Neil Bohr Institute, Copenhagen)
  • Arkya Chatterjee (Ph.D. student at MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA)
  • Mikail Khona (Ph.D. student at MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA)
  • Nirbhay Patil (Ph.D. student at ENS, Paris, France)
  • Rishabh Malviya (Machine learning specialist at Aquabyte, San Francisco, CA, USA)
  • Shobhan Dev Mandal (Ph.D. student at SNBNCBS, Kolkata, WB, India)
  • Sushant Saryal (Ph.D. student at IISER-P, Pune, MH, India)

 

Teaching

  • Advanced Statistical Mechanics
  • Nonlinear Dynamics
  • Continuum Mechanics
  • Electromagnetic Theory
  • Basics of Electricity and Magnetism

 

Join Us

We are looking for candidates with a background in Physics and with a strong motivation to work on theoretical problems at the physics-biology interface. Previous knowledge of biology is not required.

 

Ph.D. position: We currently have Ph.D. positions available in our group. Interested candidates may contact me via email.

 

 

Postdoc position: Currently, no postdoc positions are available in our group.

 

Final year M.Sc/BTP Project: Please contact me via email or schedule an appointment.


Summer Project: Currently, no summer project positions are available in our group.

Selected Publications: 

After Joining IIT Bombay (Full List)

F-box protein FBXB-65 regulates anterograde transport of UNC-104 through modification near the PH domain
Vidur Sabharwal, Sri Padma Priya Boyanapalli, Michael L. Nonent, Amitabha Nandi, Debasish Chaudhuri, and Sandhya P. Koushika.
Accepted in JCS (2024).

Percolation transitions in the binary mixture of active Brownian particles with different softness
Monika Sanoria, Raghunath Chelakkot, and Amitabha Nandi.
Preprint (2023).

Pathogenic aggregates alter actin organization and cellular viscosity resulting in stalled clathrin mediated endocytosis
Surya Bansi Singh, Satruhan Singh Rajput, Aditya Sharma, Vaishnavi Ananthanarayanan, Amitabha Nandi, Shivaprasad Patil, Amitava Majumdar, and Deepa Subramanyam.
Preprint (2023). 

Emergence of spatial scales and macroscopic tissue dynamics in active epithelial monolayers
Padmalochini Selavamani, Raghunath Chelakkot, Amitabha Nandi, and Mandar M. Inamdar.
Cells Tissues Organs (2023).

Percolation transition in phase separating active fluid
Monika Sanoria, Raghunath Chelakkot, and Amitabha Nandi.
Physical Review E, 106, 034605 (2022).

Pseudocleavage furrows restrict anteriorly expressed fluorescently tagged PH-domain in syncytial Drosophila embryo
Sameer Thukral, Bivash Kaity, Debasmita Mitra, Bipasha Dey, Pampa Dey, Mithun Mitra, Amitabha Nandi, and Richa Rikhy.
Biophysical Journal, 121, 1-17 (2022).

Dynamics and stability of the contractile actomyosin ring in the cell
Mainak Chatterjee, Arkya Chatterjee, Amitabha Nandi, and Anirban Sain.
Physical Review Letters128, 068102 (2022).

Influence of interaction softness in phase separation of active particles
Monika Sanoria, Raghunath Chelakkot, and Amitabha Nandi.
Physical Review E103, 052605 (2021).

Capture of a diffusive prey by multiple predators in confined space
Indrani Nayak, Amitabha Nandi, and Dibyendu Das.
Physical Review E102, 062109 (2020). 

Cyto-architecture constrains the spread of photoactivated tubulin in syncytial Drosophila embryo.
Sameer Thukral, Bivash Kaity, Bipasha Dey, Swati Sharma, Amitabha Nandi, Mithun Mitra, and Richa Rikhy.
The International Journal of Developmental Biology, 64, 265 (2020).
 
Comparison of mechanisms of kinetochore capture with varying number of spindle microtubules.
Indrani Nayak, Dibyendu Das, and Amitabha Nandi.
Physical Review Research, 2, 013114 (2020).
 
Non-gaussian subdiffusion of single-molecule tracers in a hydrated polymer network.
R. K. Singh, Jaladhar Mahato, Arindam Chowdhury, Anirban Sain, and Amitabha Nandi. 
The Journal of Chemical Physics, 152, 024903 (2020).

First Passage of a particle in a potential under stochastic resetting: A vanishing transition of optimal resetting rate
Saeed Ahmad, Indrani Nayak, Ajay Bansal, Amitabha Nandi, and Dibyendu Das.
Physical Review E, 99, 022130 (2019).

Intrinsic stochastic resonance via set-point variation
Kunaal Joshi, Ishant Tiwari, Amitabha Nandi, and P. Parmananda.
Physical Review E98, 012218 (2018).

Active dynamics of tissue shear flow.
Marko Popović, Amitabha Nandi, Matthias Merkel, Raphaël Etournay, Suzanne Eaton, Frank Jülicher, Guillaume Salbreux.
New Journal of Physics, 19, 033006 (2017).


Before Joining IIT Bombay (Selected List)

Interplay of Cell Dynamics and Epithelial Tension during Morphogenesis of the Drosophila Pupal Wing.
Raphaël Etournay*, Marko Popovic*, Matthias Merkel*, Amitabha Nandi*, Corinna Blasse, Benoit Aigouy, Holger Brandl, Gene Myers, Guillaume Salbreux, Frank Jülicher, Suzanne Eaton. 
Elife, 4, e07090 (2015). 
*Equal contribution 

Regulated tissue fluidity steers zebrafish body elongation.
Andrew K. Lawton, Amitabha Nandi, Michael J. Stulberg, Nicolas Dray, Michael W. Sneddon, William Pontius, Thierry Emonet, Scott A. Holley. 
Development, 140, 573 (2013).
 
Pivoting of microtubules around the spindle pole accelerates kinetochore capture.
Iana Kalinina, Amitabha Nandi, Petrina Delivani, Mariola R.Chacón, Anna H. Klemm, Damien Ramunno-Johnson, Alexander Krull, Benjamin Lindner, Nenad Pavin, Iva M. Tolic-Nørrelykke. 
Nature Cell Biology, 15, 82 (2013).
 
Distribution of diffusion measures from a local mean-square displacement analysis.
Amitabha Nandi, Doris Heinrich, Benjamin Lindner. 
Phys. Rev. E, 86, 021926 (2012).
 
Local motion analysis reveals impact of the dynamic cytoskeleton on intracellular subdiffusion.
Marcus Otten*, Amitabha Nandi*, Delphine Arcizet, Mari Gorelashvili, Benjamin Lindner, Doris Heinrich. 
Biophysical Journal, 102, 758 (2012). 
*Equal contribution

Research Category: