Suman Kumar Dhar | |
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| Born | 6 March 1968 Kalimpong, West Bengal, India |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Alma mater | |
| Known for | Studies on Helicobacter pylori and Plasmodium falciparum |
| Awards | |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | |
| Institutions | |
Suman Kumar Dhar (born 1968) is an Indian molecular biologist and a professor at the Special Centre for Molecular Medicine of Jawaharlal Nehru University. [1] He is known for his studies on the DNA replication and cell cycle regulation in Helicobacter pylori and Plasmodium falciparum, two pathogens affecting humans. [2] An elected fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India, Indian National Science Academy [3] and the Indian Academy of Sciences, [4] he is also a recipient of the National Bioscience Award for Career Development of the Department of Biotechnology in 2010. [5] The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 2012, for his contributions to biological sciences. [6]
Suman Kumar Dhar, born on 6 March 1968 in the Indian state of West Bengal, graduated in chemistry from Burdwan University in 1989 and completed his master's degree in biochemistry in 1992 from Kalyani University before securing a PhD in molecular biology from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in 1998. [7]
He worked from 1997 to 1998 as a research assistant at the department of microbiology of the University of Nebraska. Next, he did his post-doctoral studies at Brigham and Women’s Hospital of Harvard Medical School which he completed in 2001. [8]
Returning to India the same year, he joined Jawaharlal Nehru University as an assistant professor at the Special Centre for Molecular Medicine (SCMM) of the university where he rose in ranks to become an associate professor in 2005 and a professor in 2011, finally reaching the position of the chairperson of SCMM in 2011. In
between, he served as a visiting fellow at Harvard Medical School from 2002 to 2003), the Harvard School of Public Health from 2003 and 2004, and the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in 2007. He also served as a Humboldt Research Fellow at Bernhard Nocht Institute in 2008. Besides his academic duties at JNU, Dhar is involved in the establishment of Centre of Excellence in Parasitology, a Department of Biotechnology-funded project. [7] He was also a member of the proctorial committee constituted by JNU to inquire about the 2016 JNU protests. [9] [10]
Dhar's research history starts during his graduate studies when he worked on Entamoeba histolytica, the protozoan which causes amoebiasis, focusing on its ribosomal DNA circle. [11] Later at Harvard Medical School, his post-doctoral studies were centered on mammalian DNA replication which assisted him to identify the ORC6 (origin recognition complex subunit six) and its role in viral DNA replication. He also identified geminin, a replication inhibitor, as a blocking factor of viral DNA replication, a discovery which earned him a US patent. [7] Later, he studied the human pathogens, Helicobacter pylori and Plasmodium falciparum and their DNA replication and cell cycle regulation. [12] He also worked on anti-malarial drugs and proposed Acriflavine as an anti-malarial agent, which has also been patented by him. [13] His work has identified PfGyrase for P. falciparum and HpDnaB helicase for H. pylori as targets [14] and these researches are reported to be helpful in drug discovery efforts for Gastric ulcers, Gastric adenocarcinomas and Malaria. [15] Dhar has documented his research by way of a number of articles [note 1] and online repositories such as PubMed [16] and Pubfacts have listed many of them. [17] He has contributed chapters to three books which include Epigenetics: Development and Disease by Tapas Kumar Kundu. [18] He is associated with many science journals such as Journal of Biological Chemistry, Molecular Microbiology, FEBS Journal and Medical Science Monitor as an ad-hoc reviewer and has delivered featured talks including his oration at the Gordon Research Conference on Host-Parasite interaction held in Rhode Island in 2012. [7]
While in the US, Dhar received two grants for his researches, a grant from the National Institutes of Health for studies on emerging infectious diseases (1997–98) and the United States Department of the Army grant for research on breast cancer (2000–03). [7] He received the Senior International Research Fellowship of the Wellcome Trust in 2005, the tenancy of the fellowship extending to 2010, and on its expiry, he received the Wellcome Trust-DBT Senior Research Fellowship in 2010. In 2006, Dhar received the Swarnajayanthi Fellowship of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) [19] and four years later, DBT honored him again with the 2010 National Bioscience Award for Career Development. [5] He was elected to the Guha Research Conference in 2007 and the next year brought him the Alexander Von Humboldt Fellowship and the Swarnajayanti Fellowship of the Department of Science and Technology. [20]
A member of the American Society for Microbiology, Dhar was awarded the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research in 2012. [6] The National Academy of Sciences, India elected him as a fellow in 2011 [21] and he became a fellow of the Indian National Science Academy and the Indian Academy of Sciences in 2016. [3] [4]
The Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) is a multidisciplinary research institute located at Jakkur, Bangalore, India. It was established by the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India, to mark the birth centenary of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India. In 2019, JNCASR was ranked #7 among the world's top ten research institutes by Nature journal in a normalised ranking of small research institutes with high quality output.
Maharaj Kishan Bhan was an Indian pediatrician and clinical scientist. He received M.B.B.S. Degree (1969) from Armed Forces Medical College, Pune and M.D. Degree from Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh. He carried out extensive post doctoral research at All India Institute of Medical Sciences in the areas of diarrheal diseases and child nutrition with an emphasis on public health issues. He served as the president of the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education & Research (JIPMER).
Asis Datta is an Indian biochemist, molecular biologist and genetic engineer, known for his research on genetically modified foods and food nutritional security. He was the founding Director of the National Institute of Plant Genome Research and is credited with the discovery of genes that assist in extended preservation of fruits and vegetables. He is a recipient of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award, the highest Indian award and in the Science category, and was awarded the fourth highest civilian award of the Padma Shri, by the Government of India, in 1999. In 2008, he was included again in the Republic Day Honours list for the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan.
Sudhir Kumar Sopory is an Indian educationist, plant physiologist, scientist and former vice chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is known to be the first to purify a protein kinase C activity from plants and is credited with the identification of topoisomerase as a substrate of protein kinase C. He is an elected Fellow of several major Indian science academies and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) and is a recipient of many honours, including the 1987 Shanti Swarup Bhatangar Prize, the highest Indian award in the science and technology categories. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of the Padma Shri, in 2007, for his contributions to science and technology.
Satish Chandra Maheshwari was an Indian botanist and a former professor at the University of Delhi. He is known for his contributions to the fields of plant physiology and plant molecular biology. Maheshwari is an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, the Indian National Science Academy and the National Academy of Sciences, India. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 1972, for his contributions to biological sciences. He died from lung cancer on June 12, 2019.
John Barnabas (1929–1994) was an Indian evolutionary biologist, known for his contributions in the fields of Molecular Systematics and Evolution. He was a member of the Science Advisory Committee to the cabinet as well as the Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India. A Jawaharlal Nehru Fellow, Barnabas was also an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy and the National Academy of Sciences, India. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 1974, for his contributions to biological sciences.
Raghavan Varadarajan is an Indian biophysicist and a professor at the Indian Institute of Science. He is known for his researches in the fields of protein structure and protein folding and his contributions in developing vaccines and drugs for treating a type of fatal influenza and HIV-1. He is a former J. C. Bose National Fellow of the Department of Science and Technology and an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 2002, for his contributions to biological sciences.
Tapas Kumar Kundu is an Indian molecular biologist, academician and at present the Director of Central Drug Research Institute, a prestigious research institute of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research at Lucknow. He is the head of the Transcription and Disease Laboratory of Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research. He is known for his studies on the regulation of Gene expression and his contributions in cancer diagnostics and the development of new drug candidates for cancer and AIDS therapeutics. He is an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy and the National Academy of Sciences, India and a J. C. Bose National Fellow of the Department of Science and Technology. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 2005, for his contributions to biological sciences. He is also a recipient of the National Bioscience Award for Career Development of the Department of Biotechnology.
Amitabh Joshi is an Indian evolutionary biologist, population ecologist, geneticist and a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR). He heads the Evolutionary Biology Laboratory at JNCASR and is known for his studies on Evolutionary genetics and Population ecology. An elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences, India, and Indian National Science Academy, he was also a J. C. Bose National Fellow (2011-2021) of the Department of Science and Technology. He served as the Chief Editor of the Journal of Genetics (2008-2014) and Editor of Publications of the Indian Academy of Sciences (2017-2021). The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 2009, for his contributions to biological sciences.
Narayanan Chandrakumar is an Indian chemical physicist and a professor of chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. He was the founder of the first Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) laboratory in India and is known for developing a new technique for NMR imaging and diffusion measurement. He is an elected fellow of the Indian National Science Academy and the Indian Academy of Sciences. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 1996, for his contributions to chemical sciences.
Swapan Kumar Pati is an Indian quantum chemist, a professor of the department of chemistry at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research and the head of the Quantum Theory Molecules to Materials Group at the institute. He is known for his studies on electronic optical and magnetic phenomena in molecular systems and is an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences, India and The World Academy of Sciences. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 2010, for his contributions to chemical sciences.
Rajinder Kumar is an Indian chemical engineer and a former professor at the Indian Institute of Science. He is known for his studies on multiphase phenomena and is an elected fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, Indian Academy of Sciences, and the Indian National Academy of Engineering. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Engineering Sciences in 1976. He received the third highest Indian civilian award of the Padma Bhushan in 2003. He is also a recipient of Om Prakash Bhasin Award and the VASVIK Industrial Research Award.
Vijay Kumar is an Indian molecular biologist, virologist and an honorary scientist at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology. Known for his research in hepatology, Kumar is an elected fellow of National Academy of Sciences, India, National Academy of Medical Sciences, and National Academy of Agricultural Sciences as well as a J. C. Bose National Fellow of the Department of Biotechnology. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Medical Sciences in 1997.
Deepak Kumar was an Indian condensed matter physicist and a professor at the School of Physical Sciences of Jawaharlal Nehru University. Known for his research on quantum mechanics and other areas of condensed matter physics, Kumar was an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to physical sciences in 1988.
Arup Kumar Raychaudhuri is an Indian condensed matter physicist, materials scientist and a Distinguished Emeritus Professor at the S. N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences. Known for his pioneering work on the interplay of disorder and interaction, Raychaudhuri is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies viz. Indian Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences, India and Indian National Science Academy as well as the Asia-Pacific Academy of Materials. He is a recipient of a number of awards such as Millennium Medal of the Indian Science Congress, ICS Gold Medal of the Materials Research Society of India and FICCI Award. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to physical sciences in 1994.
Sanjay Puri is an Indian statistical physicist and a senior professor at the School of Physical Sciences of Jawaharlal Nehru University. Known for his research on non-linear dynamics, Puri is an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to physical sciences in 2006.
Deepak Gaur was an Indian molecular biologist, and a professor at the School of Biotechnology of Jawaharlal Nehru University. Known for his studies on Plasmodium falciparum, Gaur is a recipient of the N-Bios Prize. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to medical sciences in 2017.
Kanishka Biswas is an Associate Professor in the New Chemistry Unit at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore with research interests focused on renewable energy and clean environment. The areas in which he has worked include solid state inorganic chemistry of metal chalcogenides, thermoelectric materials, 2D layered materials, topological insulators.
Tapas Kumar Maji is a professor in the Chemistry and Physics of Materials Unit at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bengaluru with research interests in topics related to porous materials, nanoscale metal-organic frameworks and composites and functional gel materials. Maji obtained his MSc degree in inorganic chemistry from Burdwan University in 1997 and PhD degree from Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science in 2002. He did a post-doctoral fellowship at Kyoto University, Japan (2003–05).
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