Dr Kartik Sunagar

Assistant Professor, Wellcome DBT Intermediate Fellow and Group Leader at CES, IISc, Bangalore.

Dr Kartik Sunagar is an Assistant Professor and a Wellcome Trust DBT India Alliance Fellow at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Dr Sunagar is an evolutionary biologist by training and has studied venomous animals and their venoms as model systems to address various intriguing questions in ecology, evolution and genetics. His PhD (University of Porto, Portugal) and postdoctoral research (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel) has provided fascinating insights into venom ecology and evolution, including the dynamics of venom evolution across large time, evolutionary origin and development of venom producing cells, coevolutionary arms races, molecular mechanisms of venom action, the genetic basis of venom resistance, and the role of environmental and ecological factors in driving the evolution of venom. The major focus of Dr Sunagar’s Evolutionary Venomics Lab (www.venomicslab.com) has been on the innovation of a pan-India efficacious snakebite therapy through the discovery and development of broadly neutralising antibodies.