Varen Talwar

Ph.D. Student, ODBI

Varen is a graduate student in the Omenn-Darling Bioengineering Institute. Born and raised in India, he did his undergraduate degree in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. His interest in learning how homeostasis and biological control works at the molecular and cellular level led him to join Gregg Semenza’s lab to study how cells adapt to hypoxia and its role in tumor progression. Now in his PhD, he seeks to engineer synthetic circuits and systems to interrogate and control complex cellular states. He hopes this will lead to interesting new ways to study biology and build new therapeutic modalities for neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, and aging. Outside of the lab, Varen is a huge cinephile (so much so he has tattoos of his favorite films) and loves going for trivia and puzzle nights around Princeton.