Dr. Varun Shah

About

A biotech academician and passionate researcher having interests in amalgamating academics-research-entrepreneurship. Have gained expertise in ‘omics approaches’ of molecular biology and hands on experience in gut microbiome, metagenomics, cloning, protein expression and preliminary protein characterization. My nineteen years of experience includes doctoral studies (5 years); three post-doctorates (3 & 1/2 years); attempted start-up (3 years); Project Scientist C (2 years); Assistant Professor (6 & 1/2 years), wherein, I have been involved in research, teaching, administration, entrepreneurial journey and managing scientific projects.
Before joining GBU, I was working as Project Scientist C at NCCS in DBT sponsored project (national importance) entitled ‘Human Microbiome initiative of select endogamous populations of India’ wherein we are characterizing and generating baseline gut microbiome data and correlating to diet, lifestyle, geography, age, genetic and ayurvedic prakriti of body. My post-doctoral work at IISc was focused on elucidating the heat shock response mechanism in Plasmodium falciparum. My doctoral studies at SPU was focused on mapping the biodegradation capabilities possessed by indigenous microbial population at dye contaminated sites.

Background

• 2021-22; Project Scientist C, NCCS
• 2018-21; Assistant Professor, Atmiya University
• 2015-18; Founder Director, Aanvik Lifesciences Pvt. Ltd.
• 2014-15; Post-Doc, NCAOR
• 2013-14; Post-Doc, Ahmedabad University
• 2012-13; Post-Doc (DBT-PDF-RA), IISc
• 2006-12; Ph.D. in Biotechnology, Sardar Patel University
• 2004-06; M.Sc. in Biotechnology, Sardar Patel University
• 2001-04; B.Sc. in Biotechnology, Sardar Patel University

Honours and Awards

• DAAD Fellowship; 2010; CeBiTec, Bielefeld, Germany.
• Best Poster Award; 2008; ‘5^th BRSI Annual Convention and ICBF’ conference.
• Gold Medal; 2006; First position at the University level in M.Sc.

Research Expertise

Molecular Biology (‘-omics’ approaches); Gut microbiome studies; Wastewater surveillance based epidemiological studies.

Research Group Overview

Environment and Human have lost their pristine characteristics since the beginning of industrialization on land as well as water bodies as a consequence of selfish unending appetite of Homo sapiens for so called comfort and luxury. Development in last 100 years depended on chemical industrialization. As a result, today we are at the crossroads of choosing between so called our development and the health. Subsequently, to maintain the balance, focus is to make bio-processes economically viable so that they can replace the existing usage of chemicals and energy. Microbes and Enzymes are wonderful resources having answers to most of the concerns and problems.

Our lab, the Interconnected Microbiomes Lab, is interested in using molecular biology, rDNA technology and ‘-omics’ for translational research in Microbial Biotechnology, Healthcare and Environmental Biotechnology. Current focus is as follows:

A. Human Health:

• Correlating microbiome, metabolome and genome profiles with behaviour, lifestyle and health to find evidences for reversing disease conditions
• Diseased Microbiome Intervention studies
• Establishing and validating gut-on-chip platforms

B. Environmental Health:

• Wastewater surveillance based epidemiological studies
• Influence of emerging contaminants on health

Publications

Twelve publications; Selected few publications are given below:

• Shukla N., Thakor J., Chavda P., Purohit H., Patel H., Thakar S., Raval A., Prajapati J., Solanki J., Datta D., Karri H., Mondal A., Singh N.K., Bagathariya S., Joshi C., Joshi M.*, Mootapally C.*, Shah V.* and Pandit R.* (2026) Longitudinal wastewater virome surveillance unveils untapped circulating viruses in the community. npj Emerging Contaminants (2), 15.
• Dixit K., Busi S.B., Ahmed A., Kshirsagar A., Jäger C., Singh A., Shah V., Saroj S.D., Ahuja V., Wilmes P., Shouche Y., Makharia G. and Dhotre D. (2026) Multi-meta-omics reveal distinct microbial genomic profiles and metabolic dysregulation in non-celiac gluten sensitivity. mSphere 11 (4): e00856-25. (IF – 3.1)
• Sayeed S.K.¶, Shah V.¶, Chaubey S., Singh M., Alampalli S.V. and Tatu U.S. (2014) Identification of heat shock factor binding protein in Plasmodium falciparum. Malaria Journal 13: 118. (IF – 3.5; ¶ equal authors)
• Singh M., Shah V. and Tatu U. (2014) A novel C-terminal homologue of Aha1 co-chaperone binds to heat shock protein 90 and stimulates its ATPase activity in Entamoeba histolytica. Journal of Molecular Biology 426: 1786-1798. (IF – 3.9)
• Shah V., Zakrewski M., Wibberg D., Eikmeyer F., Schlüter A. and Madamwar D. (2013) Taxonomic profiling and metagenome analysis of a microbial community from a habitat contaminated with industrial discharges. Microbial Ecology 66: 533-550. (IF – 3.3)
• Jain K., Shah V., Chapla D. and Madamwar D. (2012) Decolourization and degradation of azo dye-Reactive Violet 5R by an acclimatized indigenous bacterial mixed cultures-SB4 isolated from anthropogenic dye contaminated soil. Journal of Hazardous Materials 213-214: 378-386. (IF – 4.7)