Nagasuma Chandra is an Indian structural biologist, biochemist and a professor at the department of biochemistry of the Indian Institute of Science. She is known for her studies on

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 ...

. The

Department of Biotechnology The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) is an Indian government department, under the Ministry of Science and Technology responsible for administrating development and commercialisation in the field of modern biology and biotechnology in India. It ...

of the Government of India awarded her the

National Bioscience Award for Career Development The National Bio-science Award for Career Development or N-BIOS Prize is an Indian science award for recognizing excellence and promoting research in bio-sciences disciplines. It was instituted in 1999 by the Department of Biotechnology of the Gov ...

, one of the highest Indian science awards, for her contributions to biosciences in 2008.

Biography

Nagasuma Chandra, born in the south Indian state of Karnataka, completed her undergraduate (BPharm) and post-graduate (MPharm) studies at the

Bangalore University Bangalore University (BU) is a public state university located in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. The university is a part of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU), Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) and affiliated by Univers ...

and moved to the UK from where she secured a PhD from the University of Bristol in 1992. She did her post-doctoral work at the Molecular Biophysics Unit (MBU) of the

Indian Institute of Sciences The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) is a public, deemed, research university for higher education and research in science, engineering, design, and management. It is located in Bengaluru, in the Indian state of Karnataka. The institute wa ...

(IISc) from 1992 to 1997 and joined IISc as a research scientist the same year. A year later, she became a faculty of bioinformatics of the institute where she holds the position of a professor. At IISc, she has set up a systems biology and computational biochemistry laboratory, popularly known as Chandralab, and hosts several research scholars. She also serves as a faculty at the ''National Network for Mathematical and Computational Biology'', an educational agency funded by the

Science and Engineering Research Board Science and Engineering Research Board is a statutory body under the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, established by an Act of the Parliament of India in 2009 ( SERB ACT,2008). The Board is chaired by the Secretary to t ...

of the Government of India.

Legacy

Chandra's research focus is in the fields of computational systems biology, cell modeling and structural bioinformatics and she leads a team of scientists who are involved in research in areas such as systems biology, computational immunology, structural bioinformatics and drug discovery. She has carried out studies on

, the causative pathogen of tuberculosis, with special emphasis on their metabolic processes and, along with

M. Vijayan Mamannamana Vijayan (16 October 1941 – 24 April 2022) was an Indian structural biologist. He was awarded Padma Shri by the President of India in 2004. He was the President of the Indian National Science Academy from 2007–2010. He was DAE ...

and K. Sekar, two of her colleagues at IISc, has developed system models which has helped identify new drug targets against the disease. In 2017, the team led by her identified three drugs namely

Ebselen Ebselen (also called PZ 51, DR3305, and SPI-1005), is a synthetic organoselenium drug molecule with anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant and cytoprotective activity. It acts as a mimic of glutathione peroxidase and can also react with peroxynitrite. It ...

, Vancomycin and

Phenylarsine oxide Phenylarsine oxide (PAO or PhAsO) is an organometallic compound with the empirical formula C6H5AsO. It contains a phenyl group and an oxygen atom both bonded to an arsenic atom. Structure Despite its simple empirical formula, phenylarsine oxide d ...

that could be used in combination with Isoniazid, the principal antibiotic used against tuberculosis, to treat the drug-resistant strains of the pathogen. The team discovered that the three drugs lowered the antioxidant levels in the bacterium and thereby destroyed its drug-resistance. Her studies have been documented by way of a number of articles and

ResearchGate ResearchGate is a European commercial social networking site for scientists and researchers to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators. According to a 2014 study by ''Nature'' and a 2016 article in ''Times Higher Education'' ...

, an online repository of scientific articles has listed 297 of them. She has also delivered invited speeches at various seminars and conferences.

Awards and honors

The

of the Government of India awarded her the

, one of the highest Indian science awards in 2008.

Selected bibliography

* * * *

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Chandra, Nagasuma N-BIOS Prize recipients Living people Indian Institute of Science alumni Indian molecular biologists Scientists from Bangalore Indian bioinformaticians Indian biochemists Bangalore University alumni Alumni of the University of Bristol Academic staff of the Indian Institute of Science Year of birth missing (living people)