Balaji Prakash (born 1968) is an Indian structural biologist, biochemist and professor, biological and life sciences, at the School of Arts and Sciences, Ahmedabad University since July 2020. Prior to this he served as senior principal scientist and the head of the department of molecular nutrition of the Central Food Technological Research Institute. Known for elucidating the structure of a unique GTP-binding protein, Prakash is an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India (2013) and was a senior research fellow of The Wellcome Trust, UK (2004). The Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India awarded him the National Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to biosciences, in 2009.
Balaji Prakash, born in 1968,[1] did his doctoral studies at the Indian Institute of Science and after securing a PhD in 1996, he completed his post-doctoral work at Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology in 2002.[2] Returning to India, he joined Jawaharlal Nehru University the same year as an assistant professor at the Special Center for Molecular Medicine but his stay there lasted only 7 months.[3] In November 2002, he joined the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur at their Department of Biological Sciences and Bio-Engineering where he later served as an associate professor from 2005 to 2010 and as a professor from 2010 to 2014. He subsequently led the Department of Molecular Nutrition of the Central Food Technological Research Institute as a senior principal scientist. In July 2020, he joined Ahmedabad University – a liberal education institution focused on interdisciplinary learning and research thinking – as Associate Dean, Sciences, at the School of Arts and Sciences, where nurtured the growth of two divisions – Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Biological and Life Sciences. Here, he ideated a few clusters of excellence around which all aspects critical to the growth of the school were centered, i.e. faculty recruitment, new PhD and Undergraduate programs, funding – were all focused around these clusters to increase focus, visibility and impact.
Career
Prakash's research focus is on enzyme catalysis, with special interest in the enzyme family composed of GTPases, kinases and sugar nucleotidyltransferases, as well as the development of peptides for food industry.[4] During his post-doctoral work at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology, he elucidated the structure of a GTP-binding protein.[5] At CFTRI, he has worked on molecular nutrition and the development of nutraceuticals and has developed a technology titled Microbes based printing for fabrication of electronic circuits for which he holds the patent; another of his invention, A novel device for crystallizing proteins and protein complexes or other biological macromolecules, is being prepared for patent submission.[3] His studies have been documented by way of a number of articles[6][note 1] and ResearchGate, an online repository of scientific articles has listed 55 of them.[7] Besides, he has delivered invited speeches at numerous conferences and seminars including the 2nd Indo-American Frontiers of Science Symposium held at Irvine, California in 2006.
Vishweshwaraiah, Yashavanth L.; Prakash, Balaji; Gowda, Lalitha R. (March 2018). "Expression profiling of the Dolichos lablab lectin during germination and development of the seed". Plant Physiology and Biochemistry. 124: 10–19. Bibcode:2018PlPB..124...10V. doi:10.1016/j.plaphy.2017.12.040. PMID29324242.
Majumdar, Soneya; Acharya, Abhishek; Prakash, Balaji (December 2017). "Structural plasticity mediates distinct GAP -dependent GTP hydrolysis mechanisms in Rab33 and Rab5". The FEBS Journal. 284 (24): 4358–4375. doi:10.1111/febs.14314. PMID29095572.
Bais, Vaibhav Singh; Mohapatra, Balaram; Ahamad, Nadim; Boggaram, Sanjana; Verma, Sandeep; Prakash, Balaji (January 2018). "Investigating the inhibitory potential of 2-Aminopurine metal complexes against serine/threonine protein kinases from Mycobacterium tuberculosis". Tuberculosis. 108: 47–55. doi:10.1016/j.tube.2017.10.005. PMID29523327.
Vithani, Neha; Batra, Sahil; Prakash, Balaji; Nair, Nisanth N. (6 January 2017). "Elucidating the GTP Hydrolysis Mechanism in FeoB: A Hydrophobic Amino-Acid Substituted GTPase". ACS Catalysis. 7 (1): 902–906. doi:10.1021/acscatal.6b03365.
Majumdar, Soneya; Acharya, Abhishek; Tomar, Sushil Kumar; Prakash, Balaji (March 2017). "Disrupting domain-domain interactions is indispensable for EngA-ribosome interactions". Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) – Proteins and Proteomics. 1865 (3): 289–303. doi:10.1016/j.bbapap.2016.12.005. PMID27979707.
Mehta, Sunita; Murugeson, Saravanan; Prakash, Balaji (August 2016). "Microbes based printing for fabrication of microlenses for organic light emitting diodes". Organic Electronics. 35: 199–207. doi:10.1016/j.orgel.2016.05.023.
Mehta, Sunita; Murugeson, Saravanan; Prakash, Balaji; Deepak, Deepak (2016). "Development of a process for generating three-dimensional microbial patterns amenable for engineering use". RSC Advances. 6 (27): 22586–22593. Bibcode:2016RSCAd...622586M. doi:10.1039/C5RA26863J.
Mehta, Sunita; Murugeson, Saravanan; Prakash, Balaji (21 October 2015). "Fabrication of three dimensional patterns of wide dimensional range using microbes and their applications". Scientific Reports. 5 (1) 15416. Bibcode:2015NatSR...515416M. doi:10.1038/srep15416.
Kumar, Vinod; Murugeson, Saravanan; Vithani, Neha; Prakash, Balaji; Gowda, Lalitha R. (January 2015). "A salt-bridge stabilized C-terminal hook is critical for the dimerization of a Bowman Birk inhibitor". Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics. 566: 15–25. doi:10.1016/j.abb.2014.12.011. PMID25527163.
Tomar, Sushil Kumar; Kumar, Prashant; Majumdar, Soneya; Bhaskar, Varun; Dutta, Prasun; Prakash, Balaji (January 2012). "Extended C-terminus and length of the linker connecting the G-domains are species-specific variations in the EngA family of GTPases". FEBS Open Bio. 2 (1): 191–195. doi:10.1016/j.fob.2012.07.009. PMID23650599.
Tomar, Sushil Kumar; Kumar, Prashant; Prakash, Balaji (May 2011). "Deciphering the catalytic machinery in a universally conserved ribosome binding ATPase YchF". Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. 408 (3): 459–464. Bibcode:2011BBRC..408..459T. doi:10.1016/j.bbrc.2011.04.052. PMID21527254.
Anand, B. (28 April 2006). "Structural stabilization of GTP-binding domains in circularly permuted GTPases: Implications for RNA binding". Nucleic Acids Research. 34 (8): 2196–2205. doi:10.1093/nar/gkl178. PMID16648363.
Mishra, Rajeev; Gara, Sudheer Kumar; Mishra, Shambhavi; Prakash, Balaji (May 2005). "Analysis of GTPases carrying hydrophobic amino acid substitutions in lieu of the catalytic glutamine: Implications for GTP hydrolysis". Proteins: Structure, Function, and Bioinformatics. 59 (2): 332–338. doi:10.1002/prot.20413. PMID15726588.
Praefcke, Gerrit J.K.; Kloep, Stephan; Benscheid, Utz; Lilie, Hauke; Prakash, Balaji; Herrmann, Christian (November 2004). "Identification of Residues in the Human Guanylate-binding Protein 1 Critical for Nucleotide Binding and Cooperative GTP Hydrolysis". Journal of Molecular Biology. 344 (1): 257–269. doi:10.1016/j.jmb.2004.09.026. PMID15504415.
Rehmann, Holger; Prakash, Balaji; Wolf, Eva; Rueppel, Alma; de Rooij, Johan; Bos, Johannes L.; Wittinghofer, Alfred (January 2003). "Structure and regulation of the cAMP-binding domains of Epac2". Nature Structural Biology. 10 (1): 26–32. doi:10.1038/nsb878. PMID12469113.
Prakash, B. (September 2000). "Triphosphate structure of guanylate-binding protein 1 and implications for nucleotide binding and GTPase mechanism". The EMBO Journal. 19 (17): 4555–4564. doi:10.1093/emboj/19.17.4555. PMID10970849.
Prakash, Balaji; Praefcke, Gerrit J. K.; Renault, Louis; Wittinghofer, Alfred; Herrmann, Christian (February 2000). "Structure of human guanylate-binding protein 1 representing a unique class of GTP-binding proteins". Nature. 403 (6769): 567–571. Bibcode:2000Natur.403..567P. doi:10.1038/35000617. PMID10676968.
Prakash, Balaji; Murthy, M. R. N.; Sreerama, Y. N.; Rao, D. Rajagopal; Gowda, Lalitha R. (December 1997). "Studies on simultaneous inhibition of trypsin and chymotrypsin by horsegram Bowman-Birk inhibitor". Journal of Biosciences. 22 (5): 545–554. doi:10.1007/BF02703392.
Prakash, Balaji; Selvaraj, S.; Murthy, M. R. N.; Sreerama, Y. N.; Rajagopal Rao, D.; Gowda, Lalitha R. (May 1996). "Analysis of the amino acid sequences of plant Bowman-Birk inhibitors". Journal of Molecular Evolution. 42 (5): 560–569. Bibcode:1996JMolE..42..560P. doi:10.1007/BF02352286. PMID8662008.
Prakash, Balaji; Murthy, M.R.N.; Sreerama, Y.N.; Rama Sarma, P.R.; Rao, D. Rajagopal (January 1994). "Crystallization and preliminary X-ray diffraction studies on a trypsin/chymotrypsin double-headed inhibitor from horse gram". Journal of Molecular Biology. 235 (1): 364–366. doi:10.1016/S0022-2836(05)80041-5. PMID8289258.
Vithani, Neha; Prakash, Balaji (2015). "GlmU from Mycobacterium tuberculosis – Structure, Function, and the Role of Metal Ions in Catalysis". Encyclopedia of Inorganic and Bioinorganic Chemistry. pp.1–9. doi:10.1002/9781119951438.eibc2327. ISBN978-1-119-95143-8.
↑ "NASI Year Book 2015"(PDF). National Academy of Sciences, India. 12 January 2018. Archived from the original(PDF) on 6 August 2015. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
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