Many bacteria are surrounded by a cell wall – a covalently crosslinked macromolecule – that not only protects them from environmental insults but also prevents them from lysing due to their own internal turgor pressure. Cleavage of this wall to make space for the insertion of new material is essential for cell expansion and many other physiological processes. In the model bacterium, Bacillus subtilis, this process is conducted by a suite of ~ 42 enzymes, collectively known as hydrolases. In the Garner lab, Aditya works on understanding when and where these hydrolases act and how they are regulated.
Previously, as a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Yonatan Grad at HSPH and co-mentored by Ethan, Aditya worked on improving our understanding of cell growth and division in the important human pathogen, Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Additionally, his work described how this organism adapts to antibiotic pressure and how it deals with the at-times detrimental effects of acquiring antibiotic resistance.
Aditya began his career studying microbial interactions in the soil. He subsequently earned his Ph.D. studying the transcriptional landscape of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis cell cycle with Dr. Christopher Sassetti at the University of Massachusetts Medical School where he discovered a novel role for nucleotide biosynthesis in influencing cell division.