P. N. Rangarajan | |
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| Born | (1963-04-15)15 April 1963 (age 61) |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Alma mater | |
| Known for | Studies oneukaryoticgene expression |
| Awards | |
| Scientific career | |
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Pundi Narasimhan Rangarajan (born 15 April 1963) is an Indian biochemist, virologist and a professor at the department of biochemistry of theIndian Institute of Science. Prof Rangarajan is currently the Chairman of the Department of Biochemistry at Indian Institute of Science. Known for his research oneukaryoticgene expression, Rangarajan is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies viz.National Academy of Sciences, India,Indian Academy of Sciences andIndian National Science Academy. 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 for his contributions to Medical Sciences in 2007.[1][note 1]
P. N. Rangarajan, born inBengaluru in the south Indian state ofKarnataka, secured a PhD from theIndian Institute of Science (IISc) in 1989 and did his post doctoral work atSalk Institute for Biological Studies during 1990-92.[2] After servingHoward Hughes Medical Institute as a research associate for a year, he returned to India to join IISc at the department of biochemistry in 1993 where he is a professor. At IISc, he has been carrying out research on howneurotropic viruses induce changes ineukaryoticgene expression in humans.[3] He leads a team of scientists engaged in the studies ofPichia pastoris, amethylotrophicyeast species, with regard to itstranscription factors and the regulation of carbon metabolism.[4] He has also done extensive work on vaccine development against infectious diseases such asrabies,hepatitis B andJapanese encephalitis and he and his colleagues were successful in developing a new DNA-based vaccine against rabies.[5] Later, they improved the vaccine performance by combining the DNA-based rabies vaccine with a controlled quantity of inactivated virus prepared through cell culture.[6] The work earned Rangarajan and his colleaguesPatent Cooperation Treaty[7] and Indian patents[8] and the vaccine, reportedly cheaper to produce than conventional cell culture rabies vaccines, is being marketed byIndian Immunologicals Limited, under the brand name,Dinarab.[9] His studies have been documented by way of a number of articles[10][note 2] of which many have been listed by online article repositories such asGoogle Scholar[11] andResearchGate.[12]
Rangarajan's work has attracted research by other scientists[13] and he has delivered invited speeches or keynote addresses including the lecture onGene Regulation in Eukaryotes: Diversity in general Transcription factors at IIT Madras[14] and the address onTranscriptional interference in the methylotrophic yeast, Pichia pastoris atIndian Institute of Science Education and Research, Thiruvananthapuram in October 2012.[15] He was the co-convenor of the lecture workshop onRecent Advances in Biotechnology of Health and Disease (BHD-2011) organized byMadurai Kamaraj University in 2011[16] and has been involved in conducting open courses onEukaryotic Gene Expression.[17]
Rangarajan is married to Radha and the couple has two children, Karthik and Meghana. The family lives inRajajinagar in Bengaluru.[18]
Rangarajan received theNational Bioscience Award for Career Development of theDepartment of Biotechnology in 2001.[19] The National Academy of Sciences, India elected him as a fellow in 2002.[20] The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research awarded him Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, one of the highest Indian science awards in 2007.[21] The Indian Academy of Sciences elected him as a fellow the same year[22] and he became an elected fellow of the Indian National Science Academy in 2017.[23][note 3]
Authority control databases: Academics |
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