Hi there! I am a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Fellow of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, hosted by Ronald D Vale at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, HHMI, and MIT. I have a long-standing research goal of understanding complex biomolecular phenomena using ab initio physicochemical principles.
I have received my PhD from the Johns Hopkins University, where I was advised by Peter N Devreotes (Department of Cell Biology) and Pablo A Iglesias (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering). Prior to that, I received my Bachelor and Master degrees, both in Chemical Engineering, from Jadavpur University and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, respectively.
During my PhD, I was broadly interested in understanding how a cell continuously decide when and where to make next protrusions and contractions, in order to correctly migrate under external cues or stochastic fluctuations. I focused on three primary questions: a) How does the activated (aka "front") vs the inactivated/basal (aka "back") states at the plasma membrane are defined, maintained, and switched as needed? b) How do different classes of membrane proteins, especially lipid-anchored proteins, dynamically compartmentalize into specific membrane domains? c) How does the symmetry breaking process initiate in the plasma membrane, even when the cell is not under external cues or have a functional cytoskeleton?
To answer these questions, I dissected the molecular logic or the grammar of signal transduction and cytoskeletal networks, using multimodal live-cell imaging, synthetic biology/optogenetic approaches, and computational modeling. My research has delineated one of the fundamental bases of cell polarity as well as demonstrated how biophysical principles can help a cell to integrate rich biochemical and/or genetic information and how they collectively regulate various dynamic cell physiological processes. To learn more about my research, please check out the Research page and the Publications page.
For my research, I was recognized with several prestigious awards and honors including the Hay Graduate Fellowship (Department of Cell Biology, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine), Siebel Scholarship (Thomas and Stacey Siebel Foundation), David I. Macht Research Award (Johns Hopkins School of Medicine), ASCB Porter Prize for Research Excellence (American Society for Cell Biology), Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center), and Damon Runyon Fellowship Award (Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation).
Old Website is still available!
If you are missing my old look and feel of the website, please check out the old website which is still up and running (but barely updated or maintained).
Outside of lab, I actively worked to promote cross-disciplinary scientific exchange, advocate for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, teach and mentor students at various levels, and promote collegiality through different leadership positions and outreach activities.
I occasionally write code and am a free and open-source software enthusiast as I believe in the power of community and collaboration to advance science and technology. I developed Bestatic, a simple yet powerful static site generator that can turn a bunch of text files into fully functional websites and blogs without any prior knowledge in programming or web development (this website is built with Bestatic as well).
"एकं सद्विप्रा बहुधा वदन्ति — The Truth is one; it is narrated in various ways."
— ऋग्वेद (Rigveda)
"Veritas liberabit vos — the truth shall set you free."
— Gospel of John
Tatsat Banerjee, Bedri Abubaker-Sharif, Peter N Devreotes, Pablo A Iglesias. "Membrane Kymograph Generator: A cross-platform GUI software for automated generation and analysis of kymographs along dynamic cell boundaries", bioRxiv, 2026, 2026.02.11.705379. DOI: 10.64898/2026.02.11.705379
Yu Deng#, Tatsat Banerjee#, Satomi Matsuoka, Debojyoti Biswas, Liz A Kurtz, Jane Borleis, Yu Long, Parijat Banerjee, Huiwang Zhan, Dhiman Sankar Pal, Nathan H Roy, Masahiro Ueda, Pablo A Iglesias, Peter N Devreotes. "PIP5K-Ras bistability triggers plasma membrane symmetry breaking to define cellular polarity and regulate migration", bioRxiv, 2025. DOI: 10.1101/2024.09.15.613115 (#equal contribution)
Tatsat Banerjee, Yu Deng, Dhiman Sankar Pal, Huiwang Zhan, Pablo A Iglesias, Peter N Devreotes. "Signaling and Actin Waves at a glance", Journal of Cell Science, 2025, 138, jcs263634 (invited review). DOI: 10.1242/jcs.263634
Tatsat Banerjee, Satomi Matsuoka, Debojyoti Biswas, Yuchuan Miao, Dhiman Sankar Pal, Yoichiro Kamimura, Masahiro Ueda, Peter N. Devreotes, Pablo A. Iglesias. "A dynamic partitioning mechanism polarizes membrane protein distribution", Nature Communications, 2023, 14, 7909. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-43615-2
Tatsat Banerjee, Debojyoti Biswas, Dhiman Sankar Pal, Yuchuan Miao, Pablo A. Iglesias, Peter N. Devreotes. "Spatiotemporal dynamics of membrane surface charge regulates cell polarity and migration", Nature Cell Biology, 2022, 24:1499-1515. DOI: 10.1038/s41556-022-00997-7
Note
For a full list of publications, please check out the Publications page.