--:-- local · ZT -- Entraining… These flies keep your time zone.

অরিজিৎ ঘোষ

Arijit Ghosh

Postdoctoral fellow at the NIH, studying how the circadian clock and sleep shape each other.

Scroll

Visiting Fellow (Postdoctoral)
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
Bethesda, MD

01About

About

I study how two genetic networks, the circadian clock and sleep, interact to shape behavior. I work with fruit flies, quantitative genetics and statistical models.

Portrait of Arijit Ghosh
fig. 1 — the experimenter, diurnal

Currently I am a visiting postdoctoral fellow at the Laboratory of Systems Genetics, SBC, NHLBI at Bethesda, Maryland. I study the interaction between the circadian clock and sleep genetic networks, and how these interactions shape various behavior and physiological responses. During my PhD, I worked on understanding the genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying complex behaviors, specifically timing of a behavior (chronotypes), under the influence, or independent of the circadian clock, at the Chronobiology and Behavioural Neurogenetics Laboratory, JNCASR.

My studies use diverse methodologies — from statistical modeling of behavior to quantitative genetics and multi-omics techniques. Previously, I have also worked on thermo-sensitive Transient Receptor Potential (TRP) channels and their role in osteogenesis, using rodent models, primary bone cells, pharmacological modulators, and molecular dynamics during my masters studies at NISER.

I was born in Burdwan, WB, India. I went to RKMV, Purulia and RKMV, Narendrapur for schooling, then joined NISER, Bhubaneswar for an integrated MSc in Life Sciences with focus on cell biology and bioinformatics. After my PhD from JNCASR in Bangalore, I moved to Bethesda, MD to join the NIH. Apart from lab work, I am a leisure photographer, connoisseur of sci-fi and good food! For a full list of my publications, check out my Google Scholar profile.

02Research

Behavior as rhythms
and hidden states.

Reading an actogram

Chronobiologists read behavior as an actogram: every row is a day, plotted twice side by side so rhythms that cross midnight stay readable. A fruit fly's activity bunches around dawn and dusk — the morning and evening peaks — with a siesta in between.

Switch the lights off for good and the peaks keep coming. They drift a little each day because the internal clock's free-running period, τ, isn't exactly 24 hours. Drag the slider to change it.

23.5h
Fig. 2 — double-plotted actogramsimulated
7 days LD 12:12, then constant darknesshover a row

Inferring sleep states

Fly sleep varies in depth, from light to deep. Hidden Markov models infer these unobserved states from movement data alone, which lets us map the genes that shape each state.

Fig. 3 — a four-state hidden Markov modelsimulated
State: —observed ↑ · inferred ↓
15Publications
2015–2026
7As first or
co-first author
6Open-source tools
6Awards & fellowships

03Latest

Recent news.

  1. Received the SRBR Merit Award by the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms (2026), USA.

  2. Posted a Preprint on sleep state inference using HMMs in flies and an associated R package, FlyDreamR.

  3. Received the Sleep and Circadian Science Scholar Award by the Sleep Research Society (2025). Presenting at Advances in Sleep and Circadian Sciences 2025, Clearwater Beach, FL.

  4. Received the Lenfant Fellowship from NHLBI for postdoctoral training (intramural equivalent to the F32).

  5. Collaborative paper with Dragana Protic's group is out! Check it here.

  6. Our book chapter is published. Check it out!

  7. Attended SRBR 2024 at San Juan, PR. Received a merit award at the conference.