Rishita is a senior research fellow at the Mechanobiology Institute, National University of Singapore (MBI).. Her primary interest is to understand the design principles that allow the cells and organisms to respond appropriately to their diverse physical (geometry and forces) and chemical (biochemical ligands) environment. With her experience in multidisciplinary approaches, she is aspires to address challenging questions to understand nature of cell matrix interaction and the complex signal integration of the varied signals the cell receives within the cell in response to its local environment and tissue maintenance. Understanding these fundamental questions has implications in regeneration and progression of major diseases such as cancer and ageing related diseases. Her postdoctoral studies with Professor  Michael Sheetz, she developed quantitative super resolution imaging based assays to understand the emergent properties of nascent adhesions. Her work showed that these adhesions form on all substrates of as discs of 100nm with about 50 integrins. These cell matrix adhesions are universally laid down as loose aggregates of modular units of densely packed integrins.

With the satellite meeting in this beautiful tropical island, Rishita is hoping to enjoy the perennial summer with excellent scientist from all around the world. Among other things, she recommends a walk around Clare Quay to see the city or Macritchie reservoir for a walk in the tropical rain forests. Feel free to join her along these trips. For the foodies Singapore has lots to offer and feel free to ask her about it and if you ask nicely, she might 'bring you to the kampong' as the locals would put it.

She loves nature in every form, understanding it through science, listening to music in it, playing that music, traveling to see it, photographing it, growing it in her house, and perhaps getting bitten by jelly fish along the path...

In addition to the her posts on this blog, and visiting her poster (if you are attending the meeting)  you can follow Rishita's understanding of this meeting on Twitter @RishitaChangede.