IBBR Postdoctoral Fellow Advances Career with Roche Diagnostics

IBBR would like to extend congratulations to former IBBR postdoctoral fellow, Dinendra Abeyawardhane, on her new position with Roche Diagnostics in Seattle, Washington. She will be a Senior Research Associate, where she will be part of the Protein Engineering Group focusing on development of a novel DNA nanopore sequencing technology. She will be mainly focusing on DNA polymerase engineering and assay development to evaluate polymerase mutants. 

Dr. Abeyawardhane joined IBBR in 2019 and was involved in multiple projects over a three-year period. Her work mainly focused on a bacterial toxin from Clostridioides difficile that is present in the most hypervirulent strains of this deadly infection. Her goal was to determine the functional role of this protein toxin via determining its three-dimensional structure and dynamic properties with atomic resolution detail. This included learning a powerful technique termed cryogenic electron microscopy (cryoEM). Impressively, she achieved this accomplishment having no prior experience in this technique. “In fact, her training here in IBBR’s postdoctoral program (IPP) enabled her to learn cryoEM and structural biology in general “from scratch,” which is a remarkable testament to her hard work and dedication to science,” stated Dr. David Weber, Co-Director of IBBR and one of several mentors Dinendra had while here at the IBBR.

“I think IBBR is a very unique place. I wouldn't call it a typical academic lab setting,” explained Dr. Abeyawardhane. “It's a different environment even compared to my PhD experience, as you get to work on a lot of collaborative projects with others in the DC/Maryland area, which is great. You can learn a lot of different things.”

Dr. Abeyawardhane worked in a unique place at IBBR termed the “IBBR Commons” during her time here in Rockville, Maryland, and expressed her gratitude for the opportunity to work with this outstanding group. “You have a lot of opportunities to grow in Dr. Weber’s lab – there were always different projects to work on. I’m very grateful to have worked with Dr. Weber and all the outstanding scientists throughout IBBR – only positive things to say!”

Dr. Abeyawardhane received her B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura in Sri Lanka. She next completed her Ph.D. from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.