Tapas Kumar Kundu | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1962-01-02)2 January 1962 (age 63) Hili,West Bengal, India |
| Alma mater | |
| Known for | Studies on regulation ofGene expression |
| Awards | 1993 International Council of Scientific Union Award 1995 IISc Giri Memorial Award 2005 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize 2005 N-BIOS Prize 2008 NASI-Reliance Platinum Jubilee Award 2011 G. D. Birla Award for Scientific Research 2011 Ranbaxy Research Award 2012 MM India Innovation Award |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | |
| Institutions | |
| Doctoral advisor | M. R. S. Rao |
Tapas Kumar Kundu (born 2 January 1962) is an Indian molecular biologist, academician and at present theDirector[1] ofCentral Drug Research Institute, a prestigious research institute ofCouncil of Scientific and Industrial Research atLucknow. He is the head of the Transcription and Disease Laboratory ofJawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research.[2] He is known for his studies on the regulation ofGene expression and his contributions in cancer diagnostics and the development of new drug candidates for cancer and AIDS therapeutics.[3] He is an elected fellow of theIndian Academy of Sciences,[4]Indian National Science Academy[5] and theNational Academy of Sciences, India[6] and a J. C. Bose National Fellow of theDepartment of Science and Technology. 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 2005, for his contributions to biological sciences.[7] He is also a recipient of theNational Bioscience Award for Career Development of theDepartment of Biotechnology.[8]
Born on 2 January 1962 atHili, a border town near Balurghat in Dakshin Dinajpur district in the Indian state ofWest Bengal to Kalachand Kundu and Dipali couple, Tapas Kumar Kundu graduated in agriculture (BSc hons) fromBidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya in 1986 and completed his master's degree in biochemistry fromUniversity of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore in 1989, winning a gold medal for standing first in the master's degree examination.[9] He enrolled for doctoral studies at theIndian Institute of Science in 1990 and secured a PhD under the guidance ofM. R. S. Rao[10] in 1995 for his thesis,Zinc-Metalloprotein Nature of Rat Spermatidal Protein TP2 and its Interactions with DNA.[11][note 1] After a short stint at theNational Institute of Genetics, Japan during 1995–96 as a visiting foreign research associate, he did his post-doctoral studies at the Laboratory of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology ofRockefeller University during 1996–99. Returning to India the same year, he joinedJawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research at their Molecular Biology and Genetics Unit where he became an assistant professor in 2005 and heads the Transcription and Disease Laboratory of the institution in the capacity of a JNCASR Silver Jubillee Professor since 2015.[2]
Kundu is a life member and a former vice president of the Society of Biological Chemists, India[13] and is its incumbent president.[14] He is a nominated member ofAmerican Chemical Society andAmerican Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and a member of theAmerican Society for Microbiology.[2] He was among the biologists who founded the Chemical Biology Society, India of theIndian Institute of Chemical Biology in 2013 and serves as it secretary.[15] An adjunct professor at the Special Centre for Molecular Medicine ofJawaharlal Nehru University, he served as a member of the Reader Panel ofNature and is a former member of the editorial board of theJournal of Biological Chemistry (June 2011–September 2016).[2] In 2019, the School of Biological Sciences,Madurai Kamaraj University had appointed him as a distinguished member of the national and international advisory committee to organize ICGB'19 (International Conference on Genome Biology 2019).[16]
Kundu's researches are principally focused on the regulation oftranscription andP53 function usingchromatin and associated proteins as well as on the functional genomics oftranscriptional co-activators.[12] His researches assisted in the identification ofPC4 and its role as a functional component of chromatin and as an activator of P53.[17] He demonstrated thehistonechaperone activity and theacetylation of chromatin transcription and these findings have been reported to have helped in identifying new drug candidates.[18] Extending his researches to cancer and AIDS therapeutics, he has identifiedsmall molecule modulators of chromatin modifying enzymes, a discovery which is reported to be helpful in developing new therapeutic protocols.[5]
Kundu has published one book,Epigenetics: Development and Disease,[19] and a number of articles in peer-reviewed journals[note 2] andGoogle Scholar, an online article repository, has listed 215 of them.[20] Several of his research findings have been put to commercial use by various companies and he holds several patents for his works which include processes and compounds.[21] He has delivered a number of featured lectures[22] and is one of the organizers of theAsian Forum for the Chromatin and Chromosome Biology, a biennial event for the students and researchers ofepigenetics and chromatin biology from Asian countries. He is also involved in popularizing science in the rural areas through science outreach programs and has delivered a series of lectures onGenes, Disease and Therapeutics, with student community as the audience.[23]
TheCouncil of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) awarded him theShanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, one of the highest Indian science awards in 2005[7] and he received theNational Bioscience Award for Career Development (N-BIOS Prize) from theDepartment of Biotechnology, the same year.[8] Three years later, he was selected for theNational Academy of Sciences, India-Reliance Industries Platinum Jubilee Award in 2008 for his contributions to biological sciences.[24] In 2011, he received theG. D. Birla Award for Scientific Research of theK. K. Birla Foundation[25] and the Ranbaxy Research Award.[26] He is also a recipient of theIndia Innovation Award 2012 ofMerck Millipore.[27]
Kundu, a recipient of the 1993 International Council of Scientific Union Award,[12] is an elected member of theGuha Research Conference and a fellow of theUnion for International Cancer Control (2001 and 2005).[28] He was elected as a fellow by theNational Academy of Sciences, India in 2005[6] and he became an elected fellow of theIndian Academy of Sciences and theIndian National Science Academy in 2008[4] and 2009 respectively. TheDepartment of Science and Technology awarded him the J. C. Bose National Fellowship in 2010 and he has delivered several award orations including the 2010 lecture of the Tohoku Medical Society, Japan.[5] He is also a recipient ofMonbukagakusho Scholarship of the Government of Japan (1996), Post-doctoral fellowship of theHuman Frontier Science Program (2001) and Collaborative Research fellowship of ARCUS-India (2005–08).[12]
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