Rajkumar Kulandaisamy, PhD

Dr. Rajkumar Kulandaisamy is a Postdoctoral Associate in Dr. Joan Steitz's laboratory, Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry (MB&B) at Yale School of Medicine. His research focuses on oncogenic Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV), specifically studying how the high abundance of viral long noncoding RNA, Polyadenylate Nuclear (PAN) RNA, influences late viral gene expression and nuclear mRNA export during lytic infection, using molecular, biochemical, and structural approaches.

He earned his PhD in Biophysics from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, where he investigated the catalytic mechanism of peptidyl-tRNA hydrolase in Mycobacterium tuberculosis and identified potential drugs for treating resistant tuberculosis. Additionally, Dr. Kulandaisamy holds B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Microbiology from Bharathidasan University.