Dr Khushboo Borah Slater (She/Her)

I graduated as an engineer in Biotechnology from the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati India in 2013. I then moved to the UK to pursue my research career. I secured a Louis Dreyfus Weidenfeld scholarship to pursue a DPhil in Plant Sciences at the University of Oxford and graduated in 2018. During my DPhil, I worked on profiling carbon metabolism of Rhizobia that fuelled nitrogen-fixation in legume plants and gained expertise in metabolic modelling, 13C-Metabolic Flux Analysis, untargeted mass spectrometry, 13C-isotopic tracing and biochemical studies.

In 2016, I joined the University of Surrey as a Research Fellow in the School of Biosciences and Medicine to work on Tuberculosis (TB) and Leprosy. I  used 13C,15N and 2H isotopic labelling, metabolic modelling  and metabolomics to study host-pathogen metabolic interactions. Between 2019-2021, I developed a LC-MS/MS-based metabolomics to quantify compartment-specific oxysterol metabolism in mitochondria of primary immune cells and an elctrochemical rapid diagnostic test for  COVID-19. I have worked as BBSRC-funed research fellow to identify new compounds targeting nitrogen metabolism of the TB pathogen between 2021-2024.

In 2023, I secured a L’Oréal-UNESCO women in science fellowship to develop fluxomics in human immune cells in order to map immunometabolism for developing new host-directed therapeutics for TB. I was shotlisted as one of the top five scientists for "Women of the Future UK" award in September 2023.

I started as a lecturer in Biosciences at the University of Exeter in June 2024.

Media links: 

2. 28 March 2023: Fellow  L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science UK and Ireland Rising Talents Awards: LIFE SCIENCES Award

https://unesco.org.uk/for-women-in-science-2023-rising-talent-fellows/#:~:text=London,%2025th%20April%202023%20(00:01)%20%E2%80%93%20The%20L%E2%80%99Or%C3%A9al-UNESCO

3. Research Professional News: My winning proposal. 28 sep 2023 

https://www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-funding-insight-2023-9-my-winning-proposal-because-your-research-is-worth-it/

4. Women of the Future (WOF) Awards UK 2023 (Under 35)