Prafullachandra Vishnu Sane | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1937-12-24)24 December 1937 (age 88) |
| Alma mater | |
| Known for | Studies onPhotosynthesis |
| Awards | 1981 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize 1991 Bharat Jyoti Scientist of the Year Award 1994 IBS Birbal Sahni Medal |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | |
| Institutions | |
Prafullachandra Vishnu Sane (born 1937) is an Indian molecular biologist and plant physiologist, known for his pioneering studies onphotosynthesis.[1][2] He is a former director ofNational Botanical Research Institute[3] and an elected fellow of theIndian Academy of Sciences,Indian National Science Academy,National Academy of Sciences, India,National Academy of Agricultural Sciences and theMaharashtra Academy of Sciences.[4] TheCouncil of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him theShanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 1981, for his contributions to biological sciences.[5]
Prafullachandra Vishnu Sane, born on the Christmas Eve of 1937 atChiplun, inRatnagiri district in the Indian state ofMaharashtra to Vishnu Jagannath Sane and Indira, did his schooling at New English High School, Nagpur and college studies at Agriculture College ofDr. Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth from where he graduated in 1958.[6] After obtaining his master's degree in agriculture fromNagpur University in 1960, he started his career atBureau of Indian Standards in 1961 and continued there till 1964 when he moved to theUniversity of Alberta, Edmonton for his doctoral studies to secure a PhD in 1968.[4] He stayed in the North America for three more years, working at theUniversity of California, Berkeley as an assistant research botanist and returned to India to join the Agricultural Biochemistry Section ofBhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) as its head in 1972 where he worked till 1984. In between, receiving anAlexander von Humboldt Foundation fellowship, he spent one year atRuhr University Bochum during 1979–80. In 1984, he became the director of theNational Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow and held the post till his superannuation in 1997. Post retirement, he joined Jain Irrigation Systems Limited,Jalgaon where he is a principal adviser at their Agri-Biotech division.[6]
Sane is married to Suchitra Khandekar and the couple has two sons. The family lives inLucknow.[6]
During his stint atRuhr University Bochum, Sane worked on the modality of electron transport and transduction of energy inchloroplast membranes and discovered that the generation of pH gradient across the membranes is due to the presence of proton-translocating proteins.[7] Basing his studies on a mutant of Gateway Barley, he did an elaborate biochemical analysis of carbon assimilation and reactions of Ch1 biosynthesis. Associating with Roderic Park, he developed a new method for the isolation of PS-I and PS-II, without the use of detergents and propounded a model for distributing the twophotosystems in thechloroplastlamellae. Their findings were published in an article,Distribution of Function and Structure in Chloroplast Lamellae,[8] which eventually became a citation classic.[4]
During his days at theBhabha Atomic Research Centre, Sane led a team who discovered the involvement of charge pairs in producing the emitted light and these researches are reported to have helped in widening our knowledge aboutenergy storage during electron transport.[9] Later, he also made pioneering studies ontobaccotransgenic plants andsorghum.[4] He has published his research findings as chapters in several books and in over 160 articles,[10]ResearchGate, an online repository of scientific papers, has listed 87 of them.[11] It was during his tenure as the director ofNational Botanical Research Institute, the Centre for Plant Molecular Biology was established at the institute. He is a former president and an adviser to the International Society of Environmental Botanists (ISEB), a Lucknow-based non-profit, non-governmental organisation promoting coordinated research on plants and environmental pollution[12] and served as a member of the council of theIndian National Science Academy from 1996 to 1998. He has also mentored 20 scholars in their doctoral studies.[4]
TheCouncil of Scientific and Industrial Research awarded Sane theShanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 1981.[5] TheNational Academy of Sciences, India elected him as their fellow in 1987,[13] the same year as he became an elected fellow of theIndian Academy of Sciences.[14] The year 1991 brought him theBharat Jyoti Best Scientist of the Year Award as well as fellowships of the Indian National Science Academy and theNational Academy of Agricultural Sciences.[15] Sane, who is also a fellow of theMaharashtra Academy of Sciences[16] and a life member of the Society for Plant Physiology and Biochemistry and the Indian Photobiology Society,[17] received the Birbal Sahni Medal of theIndian Botanical Society in 1994.[18]
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