Nilesh Shah
PhD Student
Nilesh is from Calcutta, India. He received his undergraduate education from Colgate University in Hamilton, NY, graduating in 2024. He majored in Biochemistry under the mentorship of Dr. Jacob Goldberg. Here, Nilesh synthesized peptides to study the effects of certain unnatural amino acids on protein folding and stability in a series of beta-hairpin peptides. Additionally, he also worked on the synthesis of peptides that can be used as agents to deliver small molecule cargo, such as a fluorescent zinc sensor, to programmed biological locales, such as the brain. As a senior, Nilesh had the privilege of spending 6 months at Dr. Katherine Roche’s lab at the National Institutes of Health where he studied rare missense mutations in the genes of the ionotropic glutamate receptor (iGluR) superfamily, on the transmembrane domain of GRIN1 and GRIN2A/B, in patients suffering from intellectual disability and autism-spectrum disorders. He is now pursuing his PhD in Neuroscience in a joint graduate-partnership between McGill IPN and the NIH, working in both Dr. Bowie’s and Dr. Roche’s labs. In his free time, Nilesh enjoys watching sports, reading books, and solving crosswords!