Titas Sengupta, Ph.D.

Titas Sengupta is a postdoctoral fellow in Coleen Murphy’s lab at Princeton University. She completed her B.S. and M.S. in biological sciences at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Kolkata, India, and earned her Ph.D. in cell biology from Yale University.

As a graduate student in Daniel Colón-Ramos’ lab at Yale University, Sengupta asked how developing neurons sort into specific nerve bundles to integrate into the correct neural circuits. She collaborated with microscopists and computer scientists to establish new imaging and labeling systems in C. elegans embryos, and showed that differential adhesion regulates the placement of neurites, not by conventional neurodevelopmental programs such as outgrowth from the tips or endings, but by a new mechanism of retrograde zippering. Sengupta’s postdoctoral research in Coleen Murphy’s lab showed that forgetting of short-term associative memory requires new gene transcription on rapid timescales, challenging the idea that short-term memories are regulated solely at the protein level. She further discovered that epigenetic dysregulation of forgetting-associated transcription accelerates forgetting with age and that pathways promoting active forgetting of memories can be targeted to reverse age-related memory decline. As she transitions to independence, Sengupta’s work will address how conserved epigenetic modifiers are regulated, targeted to specific loci and influenced by external and internal states in the adult and aging nervous system.

Sengupta is a recipient of numerous awards, including the Damon Runyon Fellowship Award, the Dale F. Frey Award for Breakthrough Scientists and the Gruber Science Fellowship.