IITian who secured AIR 1 in JEE, left India to study at University of California in 2004. 10 years later, one Shah Rukh Khan flop film inspired him to return to India. Today, he is an expert on mosquito brain

He was once the poster boy for success in India. He secured All India Rank 1 in the IIT-JEE in 2000 and enrolled in IIT Kanpur to study computer science, completing his BTech in 2004, before going to the US to pursue a PhD in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology at the University of California San Diego. He later studied cognitive neuroscience at the laboratory at UC San Diego before joining the US National Institutes of Health as a postdoctoral researcher. There he also researched the electrical activity of neurones. Today, Nitin Gupta is a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and Bioengineering at IIT Kanpur, studying how neural circuits interpret and process information.

In 2014, Gupta returned to India and joined the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur as a faculty member. He subsequently set up his own laboratory at the institute to pursue research into neuroscience and animal behaviour.

According to an India Today report, a 2004 Shah Rukh Khan film – Swades – inspired him to return to his country and make advancements in research. Directed by Ashutosh Gowariker, the film did not set the box office on fire but has since become a cult film.

IIT Professor Is Obsessed With Mosquitoes

Gupta’s research group investigates the way neural networks interpret sensory signals and translate them into behavioural responses. A significant part of this work centres on the olfactory systems of insects, examining how these creatures detect, process and respond to different smells.

According to IIT Kanpur, the laboratory works with mosquitoes, fruit flies and grasshoppers as experimental models. Researchers employ a range of methods, including electrophysiological recordings, microscopic tissue analysis, behavioural studies, genetic techniques and computer-based modelling.

One important research direction involves examining how mosquitoes react to various odours, particularly scents that draw them toward humans and chemical substances that discourage or repel them.

The team also studies the antennal lobe, a specialised section of the mosquito nervous system that plays an important role in receiving and processing information related to smell.

A 2023 study spearheaded by Gupta and published in Nature Communications explored that the Aedes aegyptimosquito brain processes various smells through activities across neurones in the antennal lobe.

The ultimate goal of this research is to investigate how the nervous system absorbs information from the environment and how it influences behaviour.