Shrivani Sriskanthadevan-Pirahas
Fruit fly biologist in Savraj Grewal's Calgary lab who studies how growth signals and mitochondria in one tissue control how fast the whole larva grows
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Clark H. Smith Brain Tumour Centre and Arnie Charbonneau Cancer Institute, University of Calgary (papers with Savraj Grewal, 2018–2026)
Shrivani Sriskanthadevan-Pirahas is the first author of the Atlas study SRI2026, from Savraj Grewal's lab at the University of Calgary. The work was done in fruit fly (Drosophila) larvae. Their fat body senses food and tells the rest of the body how fast to grow. The study found that TOR, the nutrient-sensing growth kinase, keeps the protein TFAM low in the fat body. TFAM switches on the genes inside mitochondria, the cell's power plants. TOR acts on TFAM after its message is made, and this link in one tissue helps set the growth rate of the whole animal. It is a fly study and shows a mechanism, not a result in people.
The PubMed record shows a steady path in the same lab. In 2018 Sriskanthadevan-Pirahas was first author of two papers showing that the Ras/ERK growth pathway drives fly growth by boosting the cell's protein-making machinery: tRNA synthesis through the repressor Maf1, and ribosomal RNA synthesis through the factor TIF-IA. In 2022, in Cell Reports, the same team showed that lowering mitochondrial energy production only in the fat body made larvae grow faster, by reducing secreted signals that hold back insulin. A 2023 paper extended the idea to macrophage-like blood cells.
All of these papers list the University of Calgary. No separate official profile was found, so the current position is given as the affiliation on the Atlas paper.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | A | Nutrient/TOR signaling controls adipose mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM) to regulate organismal growth in Drosophila SRI2026 First author: showed in fly larvae that TOR keeps the mitochondrial regulator TFAM low in the fat body, which helps set the growth of the whole animal. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 1
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Shrivani Sriskanthadevan-Pirahas.
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- Savraj S. Grewal Calgary biochemist who uses fruit flies to work out how nutrients and growth signals such as TOR set the size of cells, organs and the whole animal
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