Dipankar Chatterji is an Indian molecular biologist and the Honorary Professor at Molecular Biophysics Unit, Indian Institute of Science, a multidisciplinary research institute under the Department of Science and Technology of the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...

. He is known for his pioneering research on

bacterial transcription Bacterial transcription is the process in which a segment of bacterial DNA is copied into a newly synthesized strand of messenger RNA (mRNA) with use of the enzyme RNA polymerase. The process occurs in three main steps: initiation, elongation, and ...

. He is a recipient of

Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology (SSB) is a science award in India given annually by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) for notable and outstanding research, Applied science, applied or Fundamenta ...

and is an elected fellow of all the major Indian science academies. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of the

Padma Shri Padma Shri (IAST: ''padma śrī''), also spelled Padma Shree, is the fourth-highest Indian honours system, civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. Instituted on 2 January 1954, ...

, in 2016, for his contributions to science and engineering.

Biography

Chatterji was born on 20 April 1951 in the Indian state of

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...

and did his graduate and master's degree at Jadavpur University, Kolkata. Subsequently, he completed his doctoral studies under the supervision of S. K. Podder and obtained a doctoral degree (PhD) in molecular biology from the Indian Institute of Science in 1973, after which he started his career as a faculty member at the School of Life Sciences of University of Hyderabad in 1978. This was followed by a stint at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and at

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system's ...

, for his post-doctoral research, and Chatterji returned to India in 1999 to join the

Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology The Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology ( hi, कोशिकीय एवं आण्विक जीवविज्ञान केंद्र, IAST: ''Kośikīya evam āṇavik jīvavijñāna kendra'') or CCMB is an Indian fundamen ...

(CCMB), Hyderabad as a research assistant before moving to the Molecular Biophysics Unit of IISc where he became the chair of the Biology and Genetics Unit, a post he held till 2005. Chatterji, who is known to have done research on bacteria such as

Escherichia coli ''Escherichia coli'' (),Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. also known as ''E. coli'' (), is a Gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus ''Escher ...

and

Mycobacterium tuberculosis ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (M. tb) is a species of pathogenic bacteria in the family Mycobacteriaceae and the causative agent of tuberculosis. First discovered in 1882 by Robert Koch, ''M. tuberculosis'' has an unusual, waxy coating on its c ...

as well as the Omega factor with regard to the

mechanism and

genome expression Gene expression is the process by which information from a gene is used in the synthesis of a functional gene product that enables it to produce end products, protein or non-coding RNA, and ultimately affect a phenotype, as the final effect. The ...

, is an adjunct professor of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata (IISER) and holds the Distinguished Research Professorship of the

Institute of Life Sciences An institute is an organisational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes can ...

, Hyderabad. His researches have been documented by way of over 150 articles published in peer-reviewed international journals and he mentors 31 research scholars in his laboratory. Chatterji is a recipient of the IISc Alumnus Award and is the president of the Indian Institute of Science. He has served as a visiting fellow at National Institute of Genetics, Japan and

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

and has served as a council member of the Indian National Science Academy from 2002 to 2004. Chatterji presided over the council of the Indian Academy of Sciences from 2013 to 2015 besides holding the position of its secretary from 2010 to 2012. Chatterji has also been involved as a member in the advisory committee for 'International Conference on Genome Biology 2019 (ICGB-2019)' organized by the School of Biological Sciences, Madurai Kamaraj University.

Awards and honors

Chatterji, a J. C. Bose National Fellow and a Homi Bhabha Fellow, is also an elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences (1994),

The World Academy of Sciences The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) is a merit-based science academy established for developing countries, uniting 1,000 scientists in some 70 countries. Its principal aim is to promote scientific capacity and excellence for sustainable devel ...

, Indian National Science Academy (1997) and the

National Academy of Sciences, India The National Academy of Sciences, India, established in 1930, is the oldest science academy in India. It is located in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. Prof. Meghnad Saha was the founder president. Fellows *Suddhasatwa Basu * Sudha Bhattacharya * Ch ...

(1989). He received the

, the highest Indian award in the Science and Technology categories, from the

Council of Scientific and Industrial Research The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (IAST: ''vaigyanik tathā audyogik anusandhāna pariṣada''), abbreviated as CSIR, was established by the Government of India in September 1942 as an autonomous body that has emerged as the l ...

in 1992. Chatterji is also a recipient of the Millennium Gold Medal (2000) and Ranbaxy Research Award (2001). The Government of India included him in the Republic Day honors list, in 2016, for the civilian award of the

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Chatterji, Dipankar Recipients of the Padma Shri in science & engineering Recipients of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in Biological Science 1951 births Indian molecular biologists Scientists from West Bengal Academic staff of the Indian Institute of Science Jadavpur University alumni Indian Institute of Science alumni Albert Einstein College of Medicine alumni Stony Brook University alumni Johns Hopkins University faculty TWAS fellows Fellows of the Indian Academy of Sciences Fellows of the Indian National Science Academy Fellows of The National Academy of Sciences, India Living people 20th-century Indian biologists

Biography

Awards and honors

See also

References

External links