Feedback

Tusar Tirtha Saha

Assistant Professor

Disease Vector Biology, Molecular Physiology of Insect Vectors
About the Faculty
 
Dr. Tusar T. Saha is a molecular biologist who works on various insects. He has vast experience working on the disease transmitting vector mosquitoes, particularly Dengue mosquito Aedes aegypti. Dr. Saha works on the factors that regulate female mosquito reproduction, which intrinsically linked with the disease transmission site. Mosquitoes spread pathogens while sucking vertebrate blood- that is required for egg development and reproductive maturation. This direction Dr. Saha seek to establish a vibrant 'Disease Vector Biology and Arthropod Genomics laboratory' here at Bits-pilani Goa and plans to work with enthusiastic young graduate students (Both Ph.D and MS/ME). This work has the potential to leads to novel vector control strategies.
 
One of the insect growth regulators that Dr. Saha has extensively worked on is juvenile hormone(JH). JH is a hormone specific to insects, and by virtue of this property JH analogues have been routinely utilized as potent FDA approved pesticides currently in use in the market. Dr. Saha is working to charecterise the molecular mode of JH action, which mostly remains a blackbox. Full scale understanding of JH signaling pathway will help us analyse how a class of pesticide works, bearing direct implications in agriculture.
 
Apart from the above mentioned areas, in collaboration with other scientists, Dr. Saha has also worked on insect immunity and pests-parasitoid interactions. This study aims to elucidate the molecular mechanisms governing success of biologicl control agents of agricultural pests, thus having implications in agricultural sciences as well.