Nikhil is an associate professor at Yale. His lab studies structures, functions and mechanisms of conductive protein filaments (nanowires) Geobacter uses to transport electrons derived from metabolism to produce electricity and clean up waste. Nikhil’s team discovered that these filaments show high conductivity due to continuous arrangement of cytochrome hemes. Nikhil’s team is now using these nanowires to develop electrogenetics - electronic control of bacterial growth, communication and adhesion.
Nikhil has received the Blavatnik Award for Innovation and Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award in 2021, NSF CAREER Award in 2018, NIH Director’s New Innovator Award and Hartwell Foundation Individual Biomedical Research Award in 2017, Charles H. Hood Foundation Child Health Research Award in 2016 and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface in 2014.