Featured Scientist: April 2016
Vijayendran Chandran, PhD
FARA Young Investigator Awardee. Dr. Chandran has developed a novel FA mouse model that can be used to study the effects of frataxin-deficiency and model paradigms of frataxin restoration.
By David Woods, PhD
From India to Germany to the US: An internationalist pursuing science, and working for human well-being.
Vijay, as he prefers to be called, grew up in the delightfully named town of Ooty, a tourist venue in the South India region of Tamil Nadu. He went on to acquire a bachelor’s degree in biotechnology and a Masters in bio informatics from Bharathiar University, named for Subramania Bharathiar, one of Vijay’s favorite poets.
From there, it was off to Germany to do his PhD studies at the University of Bielefeld, which he chose because of its eclectic mix of students from Brazil, Japan, Australia, and the UK before crossing the Atlantic to join UCLA's Department of neurology where he is at present a project scientist in neurogenetics.