Upeka Bandara joined as a Research Assistant to the Molecular Biology & Human Diseases research group at the National Institute of Fundamental Studies (NIFS) in December 2020. She received her B.Sc. (Hons) majoring Biology from University of Peradeniya and M.Sc. in Medical Biotechnology from University of Technology Sydney, Australia. Her research focuses on Transcriptome analysis of mycobacteria in serum exosomes of latent tuberculosis patients for candidate biomarker identification.  Her  research  interests  include,  Molecular  Biology,  Transcriptome  analysis, Tuberculosis and Biotechnology.