Imroze Khan

  • user
  • User logout

Other links:

Other links:

Imroze Khan

Assistant Dean, Research and Associate Professor of Biology, Ashoka University

Ph.D. Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata
https://evoecoimmunol.blog/author/imrozerkhan/ imroze.khan@ashoka.edu.in

Dr. Khan is an Associate Professor of Biology at Ashoka University. He is an evolutionary biologist with a special focus on understanding the selective forces that determine adaptive evolution of immune responses. His research combines diverse approaches – the use of experimental evolution and life history analyses, genomics, as well as physiological and molecular manipulations to assess micro- and macro-evolutionary outcomes. Among his other interests is to study the parallelism between evolutionary concepts and the cultural history of the world, and integrating the two within the framework of liberal education. He believes that evolutionary biology is a discipline that easily straddles the domains of natural sciences and humanities: a subject with historical implications and it often has to grapple with the challenge of deriving logical inferences from natural ‘experiments’ without the luxury of replication in reality, as is the case with history.

He did his Bachelors in Chemistry at St. Xavier’s College, Calcutta and Masters in Biochemistry at University of Calcutta. He did his doctoral studies in Evolutionary Biology at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata. Before joining Ashoka, Imroze was a postdoctoral fellow at National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore and a visiting researcher at the Free University of Berlin.

Published articles

  • Bolnick D, Fuess LE, Graham AL, Khan I, Steinel NC, Vaziri G (2025). Evolutionary Immunology. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics. 56. 27-51 I online access
  • Seal S*, Basu DN*, Ghosh K, Ramachandran A, Kutum R, Shelke T, Gupta I & Khan I* (2025). Pathogen growth and virulence dynamics drive the host evolution against coinfections. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. 122 (17), e2412124122 Ι online access
  • Sarkar S*, Shit B, Bose J, De S, Kawecki TJ, Khan I* (2025). Evolutionary history with chronic malnutrition enhances pathogen susceptibility at older ages. Ecology and Evolution. 15(4), e71070 I online access
  • Prakash A, Fenner F, Shit B, Salminen TS, Monteith KM, Khan I & Vale P (2024). IMD-mediated innate immune priming increases Drosophila survival and reduces pathogen transmission. PLOS Pathogens Ι online access
  • Prakash A, Agashe D & Khan I* (2023). Disruption of flour beetle microbiota limits experimentally evolved immune priming response, but not pathogen resistance. Journal of Evolutionary Biology Ι online access
  • Shit B, Prakash A*, Sarkar S, Vale P & Khan I * (2022). Ageing leads to nonspecific antimicrobial peptide responses in Drosophila melanogaster. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 289, 20221642 Ι online access
  • Dharmarajan G*, Chanda E , Dean KR, Dirzo R , Jakobsen KS , Khan I, Leirs H , Shi Z , Wolfe ND , Yang R & Stenseth NC (2022). The zoonotic origin of major human infectious diseases. Zoonoses. 2, 11 Ι online access
  • Prakash A, Agashe D* & Khan I* (2022) The cost and benefits of basal infection resistance vs diverse immune priming responses in an insect. Developmental and Comparative Immunology. 126, 104261 Ι online access
  • Prakash A* & Khan I* (2022). Why do insects evolve immune priming? A search for crossroads. Developmental and Comparative Immunology. 126, 104246 Ι online access
  • Seal S*, Dharmarajan G & Khan I* (2021). Evolution of pathogen tolerance and emerging infections: A missing experimental paradigm. eLife 10:e68874 Ι online access
  • eLife press release Ι ‘Evolutionary Medicine: A Special Issue’
  • Bagchi B, Seal S, Raina M, Basu D, Khan I* (2021). Carcass scavenging relaxes chemical -driven female interference competition in flour beetles. The American Naturalist Ι online access
  • Bagchi B#, Corbel Q#, Khan I#, Payne E#, Banerji D, Liljestrand-Rönn J, Martinossi-Allibert I, Baur J, Immonen E, Sayadi A, Arnqvist G, Söderhäll I & Berger D* (2021). Sexual conflict drives micro- and macroevolution of sexual dimorphism in immunity. BMC Biology. 19 (114). 00-00 Ι online access (Joint 1st author)
  • Khan I*, Prakash A and Agashe D* (2019). Pathogen susceptibility and fitness costs explain variation in immune priming across natural populations of flour beetles. Journal of Animal Ecology Ι online access
  • Khan I, Prakash A, Issar S, Umarani M, Sashidharan R, N Jagadeesh, Lama P, Venkatesan R & Agashe D* (2018). Female density-dependent chemical warfare underlies fitness effects of group sex ratio in flour beetles. The American Naturalist. 191. 00-00 Ι pdf
  • Khan I*, Prakash A and Agashe D* (2017). Experimental evolution of insect immune memory vs. pathogen resistance. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 284: 20171583 Ι pdf Ι Lay summary
  • Khan I*, Agashe D and Rolff J* (2017). Early life inflammation, immune response and aging. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 284, 20170125 Ι pdf Ι Lay Summary Ι Recommended by faculty of 1000
  • Khan I*#, Prakash A# and Agashe D* (2016). Divergent immune priming responses across life stages and populations of flour beetles. Ecology and Evolution. 6: 7847-7855 Ι open access Ι Lay summary
  • Khan I*, Prakash A & Agashe D* (2016). Immunosenescence and the ability to fight bacterial infection in red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum. Journal of Animal Ecology. 85: 291-301 Ι pdf Ι Lay summary
  • Chakrabarty A, Bera A, Mukherjee A, Basak P, Khan I, Mondal A, Roy A, Bhattacharyya A, Roy D, Nag S, Ghosh A, Chattopadhyay D & Bhattacharyya M* (2015) Changing bacterial profile of Sundarbans, the World heritage mangrove: Impact of anthropogenic interventions. World Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology. 31(4). 593-610 Ι pdf
  • Khan I and Prasad NG* (2013) Male Drosophila melanogaster show adaptive mating bias in response to female infection status. Journal of Insect Physiology. 59: 1017-1023 Ι pdf
  • Khan I and Prasad NG* (2013) The aging of the immune response in Drosophila melanogaster. Journals of Gerontology: Biological Sciences. 68(2):129-35 Ι pdf
  • Khan I and Prasad NG* (2011) Mating with large males decreases the immune defence of females in Drosophila melanogaster. Journal of Genetics. 90: 427–434 Ι pdf
  • Khan I and Prasad NG* (2011) Sex-specific effect of bacterial infection on components of adult fitness in Drosophila melanogaster. Journal of Evolutionary Biology Research. 3(6): 79-86 Ι pdf
  • Preprints/ Under review
  • Kurtz J*, Andino R, Boraschi D, Contreras-Garduño J, Kachroo A, Khan I, Lanz Mendoza H, Mukherjee K, Ton J. Trained immunity and immune priming in plants and invertebrates I Under review
  • Seal S*, Kumar D, Thunga P, Khangar P, Gupta M, Basu DN, Raychoudhury R, Khan I*. Microbiota drives the sexually dimorphic infection outcomes in mealworm beetles I online preprint
  • Singhal S, Choudhary C, Basu DN, Seal S, Khan I, Shukla J, Agashe D. Genome assembly and annotation of the red flour beetle (Tribolium castaneum) from India Ι online preprint
  • Sarkar S* & Khan I. Plasticity of immune development with ageing and dietary manipulations Ι Under review

PhD applicants: I will accept 2 PhD students in 2020. Prospective PhD students can write to me directly for more information.

Postdoc applicants: Currently I do not have a funded postdoctoral position. However, if you are really interested I encourage you to consider various intramural and extramural fellowships and funding sources. I will be more than happy to work with you for your application.

1. Invited for membership in the Indian Society for Evolutionary Biologists (2025)
2. Member, European Society of Evolutionary Biology (2024-present)
3. Member, Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution (2024-present)
4. New Idea Grant, Axis Bank (2024)
5. Invited membership. Molecular Immunology Forum, India (2023)
6. Associate Editor, Journal of Evolutionary Biology (2023-2025)
7. Intermediate Fellowship, DBT-Wellcome Trust India Alliance (2020)
8. Guest Editor (eLife) (2020-2021; Evolutionary Medicine Special Issue)
9. Early Career Research Award, Science Engineering and Research Board, Govt.
of India (SERB) (2018)
10. Editorial Board Member, Journal of Genetics (2017-present)
11. International Travel Award, Science & Engineering Research Board, Govt. of
India (SERB) (2017)
12. DAAD Research Stay fellowship for University Academics and Scientists (2014)
13. Visiting Scientist, Fellowship from Centre for International Collaboration, Free
University of Berlin (2014)
14. Start-up research grant for Young Scientists, SERB (2013)
15. International Travel Support, SERB (2013)
16. International Travel Support, Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India (DBT)
(2013)
17. International Travel support, ‘Society for the Study of Evolution’ (2012)
18. International Travel support, Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of
India (DST) (2012)
19. Best poster award, ‘Frontiers in modern biology 2011’, IISER-Kolkata (2011)
20. Visiting Researcher Fellowship by MIUR (Italian Ministry for Education, University
and Research) fellowship, Ca’ Foscari University of Venezia, Govt. of Italy (2006)
21. National Eligibility Test for Biological Sciences, Center for Scientific and Industrial
Research, Govt. of India (2004)
22. Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) of Biological Sciences, Indian
Institute of Technology (IIT) and Human Resource Development (HRD), Govt. of
India (2004)
23. National Merit Certificate for excellence, Higher Secondary examination,
WBCHSE, India (1999)
24. National Merit Certificate for excellence, Secondary examination, WBBSE, India
(1997)

PhD students

Basabi Bagchi (2019- present)

Saubhik Sarkar (2018- present)

Srijan Seal (2019- present)

Project Assistant

Biswajit Sit (2019-present)

Undergraduate students

Manasven Raina

Devshuvam Banerji

Shashwat Goyal

Shreya Verma

Study at Ashoka

Study at Ashoka

    Sticky Button