Vidita Vaidya is an Indian neuroscientist and professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. Her primary areas of research are neuroscience and molecular psychiatry.

Early life

Vidita's parents, Dr. Rama Vaidya and Dr. Ashok Vaidya are clinician scientists, and her uncle Dr. Akhil Vaidya (a Malaria Parasitologist) were a big motivation for her to pursue a career in research, with a focus on Neuroscience. Her father is a clinical pharmacologist, and her mother is an endocrinologist. She was also influenced by reading about the life and work of the primatologists Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall, during her teenage years.

Education

Vidita received her undergraduate degree from

St. Xavier's College A multitude of schools and universities have been named after St. Francis Xavier, a Spanish Roman Catholic saint and co-founder of the Society of Jesus. This page lists notable educational institutions named after St. Xavier, arranged by country a ...

, Mumbai in

Life Sciences This list of life sciences comprises the branches of science that involve the scientific study of life – such as microorganisms, plants, and animals including human beings. This science is one of the two major branches of natural science, the ...

and Biochemistry. She obtained her doctoral degree in Neuroscience at Yale University with Professor Ronald Duman, whose mentorship shaped her research career. Her postdoctoral work was done at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden with Professor Ernest Arenas and at the University of Oxford in UK with Professor David Grahame-Smith.

Career

She joined the Department of Biological Sciences,

TIFR Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) is a public deemed research university located in Mumbai, India that is dedicated to basic research in mathematics and the sciences. It is a Deemed University and works under the umbrella of the De ...

at the age of 29, in March, 2000, as a principal investigator. She has been a Wellcome Trust Overseas Senior Research Fellow and an associate of the Indian Academy of Sciences from 2000 to 2005. Vidita studies the neurocircuits that regulate emotion and how they are influenced by life experiences, and antidepressants. She also investigates how changes in brain circuits form the basis of psychiatric disorders like depression and how early life experiences contribute to persistent alterations in behaviour. One of the focus areas of her research group is the role of the serotonin2A receptor both as a target of serotonergic psychedelics that exert powerful effects on mood-related behavior, and also in how it contributes to shaping the long-lasting consequences of early adversity. She was awarded the National Bioscientist Award in 2012, the prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in 2015 in the medical sciences category and is a Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, National Academy of Sciences, India and the Indian Academy of Sciences. She received the J.C. Bose Fellowship from SERB, Govt. of India in 2021 and the Infosys Prize in Life-Sciences in 202

Vidita's research has also been centered around the role of serotonin in shaping neurocircuits of emotion during critical periods of postnatal development and on the mechanism of action of fast acting antidepressant treatments. Her lab work is conducted on lab rats and mice. Vidita's particular field of interest lies in understanding how individuals develop vulnerability or resilience to stress-associated psychopathology.

Features in Books and Videos

Vidita has been featured in Lilavathi's Daughters, a compilation of biographical essays on Indian women scientists, and on "The Life in Science" blog. In 2015, she gave a TEDx talk at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai in which she spoke about how stress can change our neurological makeup. She has also been featured in TIFRs "Chai and Why".

Achievements

Her work has garnered the 2015 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology for Medical Sciences. She is also a recipient of the

National Bioscience Award for Career Development The National Bio-science Award for Career Development or N-BIOS Prize is an Indian science award for recognizing excellence and promoting research in bio-sciences disciplines. It was instituted in 1999 by the Department of Biotechnology of the Gov ...

in 2012. She received the Nature Award for Mentorship in Science, 2019, in the mid-career category. She received the Infosys Prize i
Life-Sciences in 2022
for her fundamental contributions to understanding brain mechanisms that underlie mood disorders such as anxiety and depression, including signals engaged by the neurotransmitter serotonin in causing persistent changes in behavior induced by early life stress and the role of serotonin in energy regulation in brain cells.

Publications

Her site at

hosts a complete list of her publications.

Personal life

Vidita's research career was supported by her late husband, Ajit Mahadevan, who worked in the area of impact investing. They have a daughter, Alina Vaidya Mahadevan. In her spare time, Vidita likes to travel, read, and dance.

References

;Reference group {{DEFAULTSORT:Vaidya, Vidita Articles created or expanded during Women's History Month (India) - 2014 Living people Indian women academics Indian women biologists 20th-century Indian biologists St. Xavier's College, Mumbai alumni Karolinska Institute alumni Yale School of Medicine alumni Indian neuroscientists Indian women neuroscientists Indian women medical researchers 20th-century Indian women scientists Indian medical researchers N-BIOS Prize recipients Year of birth missing (living people) Recipients of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in Medical Science