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Ramanujan Faculty Fellow, Biology
PhD-IISER Pune, Postdoc- Harvard UniversityAjay is a Ramanujan Faculty Fellow at the Trivedi School of Biosciences, 51茶馆. Before joining 51茶馆, he was a Postdoctoral Research Scholar at Harvard University in the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology in the laboratory of Dr. Jason Buenrostro, where he led the development of Expansion In Situ Genome Sequencing (ExISGS), a spatial genomics platform that enables in situ sequencing of genomic DNA and nanoscale mapping of chromatin architecture within intact biological samples.
Ajay earned his PhD from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune, where his research uncovered fundamental mechanisms of chromatin organization and gene regulation, with a focus on how nuclear pore complex proteins modulate the spatiotemporal dynamics of gene clusters during cellular differentiation. He was awarded the Building Bharat鈥揃oston Biosciences (B4) Fellowship, supported by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India, and joined Harvard University.
At 51茶馆, Ajay鈥檚 lab investigates the epigenetics of inflammaging鈥攃hronic, low-grade inflammation that underlies age-associated disorders, including cancer. His group pursues two interconnected frontiers: (1) developing next-generation spatial biology technologies for nanoscale, three-dimensional genome mapping using expansion genomics; and (2) applying these tools to uncover epigenomic mechanisms that drive inflammaging. By integrating technology innovation with mechanistic chromatin biology, Ajay aims to define molecular and structural hallmarks of disease progression with unprecedented resolution and to develop CRISPR-based strategies to modulate genome architecture toward inflammation-resilient states.
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2. Labade, A.S., Karmodiya, K., and Sengupta, K. (2016). HOXA repression is mediated by
nucleoporin Nup93 assisted by its interactors Nup188 and Nup205. Epigenetics Chromatin 9, 54. 10.1186/s13072-016-0106-0.
3. Labade, A.S., Salvi, A., Kar, S., Karmodiya, K., and Sengupta, K. (2021). Nup93 and CTCF
modulate spatiotemporal dynamics and function of the HOXA gene locus during differentiation. J. Cell Sci. 134. 10.1242/jcs.259307.
4. Payne, A.C., Chiang, Z.D., Reginato, P.L., Mangiameli, S.M., Murray, E.M., Yao, C.-C., Markoulaki, S., Earl, A.S., Labade, A.S., Jaenisch, R., et al. (2020). In situ genome sequencing resolves DNA sequence and structure in intact biological samples. Science.
5. Agbleke, A.A., Amitai, A., Buenrostro, J.D., Chakrabarti, A., Chu, L., Hansen, A.S., Koenig, K.M., Labade, A.S., Liu, S., Nozaki, T., et al. (2020). Advances in Chromatin and Chromosome
Research: Perspectives from Multiple Fields. Mol. Cell. (*Equal authorship)
6. Hu, Y., Horlbeck, M.A., Zhang, R., Ma, S., Shrestha, R., Kartha, V.K., Duarte, F.M., Hock, C., Savage, R.E., Labade, A., et al. (2025). Multiscale footprints reveal the organization of cis-regulatory elements. Nature.
7. Malwal, S.R., Labade, A., Andhalkar, A.S., Sengupta, K., and Chakrapani, H. (2014). A highly
selective sulfinate ester probe for thiol bioimaging. Chem. Commun.
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