Dr Meera Purushottam

Dr Meera Purushottam is senior geneticist at the Molecular Genetics Laboratory at NIMHANS where the focus has been the genetic basis and correlates of psychiatric and neurological diseases. The laboratory is the testing ground for many clinicians who base their post graduate and doctoral thesis dissertations on wet lab experiments carried out under her supervision. Her work has focused on trying to understand the influence of gene variants on disease presentation and response to drugs.

Cells derived from patients have been used to unravel disease mechanisms better, while whole exome studies have helped to identify rare risk variants in severe mental illness in patients. She is in charge of genetic testing for early onset neuromuscular and late onset movement disorders. She is interested in understanding the biological implications of genetic variants at the level of the patient, the tissue and the cell. The effect of the environment on the DNA methylome is an area of specific interest.