Assistant Professor (Biology)

Indian Institute of Science Education & Research, Thiruvananthapuram

Focus area of research - Molecular and cellular mechanisms of Parkinson's disease; dopaminergic neuron vulnerability

Email ID - [email protected]

Website: https://sites.google.com/view/thakurlab/home

Poonam Thakur is an Assistant Professor at the School of Biology, IISER Thiruvananthapuram, where she leads the Thakur Neurodegeneration Lab. Her lab studies the molecular and cellular basis of Parkinson's disease (PD), a progressive movement disorder caused by the loss of dopamine-producing neurons in the brain. A central question driving her work is why dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra are especially vulnerable to degeneration, while others are relatively spared. Her group develops improved mouse models of PD, investigates how metabolic conditions such as diabetes influence disease progression, and explores neuroprotective strategies aimed at slowing or reversing neuronal loss.

Poonam did her PhD in Neuroscience at Panjab University, Chandigarh, where she worked on the molecular mechanisms of PD using a rat model in Bimla Nehru's lab. She then carried out postdoctoral research at Lund University, Sweden, developing a new rodent model of PD, and later at Goethe University, Germany, where she used patch-clamp electrophysiology to study the differential vulnerability of dopaminergic neuron subpopulations. She returned to India as an Early Career Fellow of the Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance and joined IISER Thiruvananthapuram as faculty in March 2020.

Her work has been recognised with several honours, including the BIOSANTEXC Discovery Award (2025), an Impact Award Grant from the Parkinson's Foundation, USA (2025, jointly with Kaue Costa), and the Junior Scientist Award from the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society (2016). She is an Executive Committee Member of the Indian Academy of Neuroscience (2024–2027). Poonam is actively involved in science outreach and has been a recipient of the Indiabioscience Outreach Grants.