Vinod received his PhD degree in February 2017 jointly from University of Science and Technology and Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Daejeon, South Korea. In his thesis work, he elucidated how bacteria sense phenols through structural analysis of transcription activators. He is applying his expertise in X-ray crystallography and biophysical approaches to gain a mechanistic understanding of how Mycobacterium tuberculosis effectors undermine the host innate immune response.