Sahil Kamboj is a EUTOPIA co-tutelle doctoral student who’s working on the modulation of integrins ⍺5β1 on the surface of ovarian cancer cells to study its effects on the cancer microenvironment. Before joining CY Cergy Paris University, he completed his Masters’ from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali, India. During his Masters’ thesis, he worked under the supervision of Dr. Mahak Sharma to investigate the role of a protein TBC1D9B as an interaction partner of lysosomal GTPase Arl8b.

As an undergrad student, he has worked on various research internships and short projects to explore interdisciplinary research. Through active participation in these projects, he gained a diverse experience of working on model organisms, bacterial cells, yeast cells and mammalian cell lines. He developed a deep interest in the field of intracellular trafficking and joined the ERRMECe laboratory to pursue the project on rapid modulation of integrin trafficking. He is pursuing this project in collaboration with the Royle lab at the University of Warwick.

Besides academics, Sahil is a representative in the EUTOPIA Student council and also the President of the EUTOPIA Student Think Tank. He is also a cricket enthusiast and likes to spend time cooking Indian dishes and enjoying French patisserie.

Research Motto: I like to play close encounter of the 3rd kind sound to cells, and watch them shine!

Melissandre project aim to explore the effect of acoustic stimulation at single cell scale. For that, our work focused on the stimulation of GFP expression with different sound sequences on transiently transfected SKOV3 cell line with integrin-GFP plasmid. A whole device has been designed to answer requested parameters to study properly the impact of acoustic stimulation on cells.

The acoustic stimulation is performed with our own piezo electric acoustic stimulation system. We study the propagation waves in the media with acoustic parameters measure in reflection/transmission. We also monitor the proper diffusion of acoustic perturbations and their effects on the media and cells with the help of High Frequency Transducers.

Besides, to investigate the effect of acoustic sound sequences on the cells, we use flow cytometry to track the expression levels of the GFP in our cells and confocal microscopy to localize GFP at cell scale.