I work on understanding the aspects of adaptive immune responses under physiological and pathological conditions. My postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Malini Raghavan at the University of Michigan is focussed on studying the effects of Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) Class I gene polymorphisms on assembly of HLA class I proteins and activation of cognate immune responses. I am also interested in exploring the unique and shared characteristics of HLA class I peptidomes under physiological and disease conditions. In addition, I am interested in exploring the immune evasion strategies used by cancerous cells, which can be targeted for therapeutic interventions. 

Kaur A, Venkatesan A, Kandarpa M, Talpaz M, Raghavan M. Lysosomal Degradation Pathways Target Mutant Calreticulin and Thrombopoietin Receptor in Myeloproliferative Neoplasms. bioRxiv. 2023 July 12; 548605. doi: 10.1101/2023.07.12.548605. (In communication with Blood Advances journal).

Kaur A*, Surnilla A*, Zaitouna AJ*, Mumphrey MB, Basrur V, Grigorova I, Cieslik M, Carrington M, Nesvizhskii AI, Raghavan M. Mass Spectrometric Profiling of HLA-B44 Peptidomes Provides Evidence for Tapasin-Mediated Tryptophan Editing. J Immunol. 2023 Nov 1;211(9):1298-1307. doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.2300232. (*equal contribution)

Ganaie AA*, Trivedi G*, Kaur A*, Jha SS, Anand S, Rana V, Singh A, Kumar S, Sharma C. Interaction of Erp Protein of Mycobacterium tuberculosis with Rv2212 Enhances Intracellular Survival of Mycobacterium smegmatis. J Bacteriol. 2016 Oct 15;198(20):2841-52. doi: 10.1128/JB.00120-16. (Article was highlighted in the Journal of Bacteriology’s spotlight selection) (*equal contribution)