Ekram is a biophysics graduate student in Dr. Shashank Shekhar’s lab at Emory University, where he studies protein dynamics using biochemistry and physics techniques to quantify protein-protein interactions, especially proteins involved in regulating the cell cytoskeleton. His published work includes research on twinfilin and tissue contractility in C. elegans, cyclase-associated protein as a processive barbed-end depolymerase, multicomponent depolymerization of actin pointed ends by cofilin and cyclase-associated protein, and spin-orbit interaction and electron correlations in strontium titanate.

Before Emory, Ekram worked as a Research Assistant in the Wesleyan Physics Department from 2017 to 2021. There, he examined the equations of motion of a two-dipole PT-symmetry system to understand how the system behaved as a function of the gain-loss parameter gamma, with potential applications in NMR technology. He also simulated the equations of motion using fourth-order Runge-Kutta methods to study phase-space solutions and bifurcations indicating chaotic system behavior.

Emory University: Biophysics graduate student in Dr. Shashank Shekhar’s Lab at Emory University, studying protein

dynamics. We utilize biochemistry and physics techniques to quantify protein-protein interactions, specifically proteins associated with the regulation of the cell cytoskeleton.

Twinfilin modulates tissue contractility through capping protein uncapping in C. elegans. (Published

Development) November 2025

Athors: Anupreet Saini, Shir Kreizman, Ekram Towsif, Jonathan Martinez-Lopez, Iska Maimon Zielonka,

Anat Nitzan, Lee Rudnick, Shashank Shekhar, Ronen Zaidel-Bar

• Cyclase associated protein is a processive barbed-end depolymerase which protects formin and

displaces capping protein, (Published PNAS) January 2025

Authors: Ekram M. Towsif and Shashank Shekhar

• Multicomponent depolymerization of actin pointed ends by cofilin and cyclase-associated protein

occurs independently of filament age: (Published, EJCB) June 2024

Authors: Ekram M. Towsif, Blake Andrew Miller, Heidi Ulrichs, Shashank Shekhar

• Effects of spin-orbit interaction and electron correlations in strontium titanate: (Published PRB)

Authors: Sergei Urazhdin, Ekram Towsif, and Alexander Mitrofanov December 2022

Wesleyan Physics Department, Research Assistant, Middletown, CT, October 2017 – May 2021

• Examined the equations of motion of a two-dipole PT-symmetry system to understand the behavior of the

system as a function of the gain-loss parameter gamma in the hopes of detecting unique modes with

potential to have novel applications in NMR technology.

• Simulated the equations of motion using fourth-order Runge-Kutta to understand the phase space solutions

leading to the discovery of bifurcations in various graphed conditions, indicating the system is chaotic.