Adusumilli Srikrishna (1955–2013) was an Indian organic chemist and a professor at the department of organic chemistry at the

Indian Institute of Science 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 was ...

. He was known for his researches on radical

cyclisation A cyclic compound (or ring compound) is a term for a compound in the field of chemistry in which one or more series of atoms in the compound is connected to form a ring. Rings may vary in size from three to many atoms, and include examples where ...

and natural products synthesis and was an elected fellow of the

Indian National Science Academy The Indian National Science Academy (INSA) is a national academy in New Delhi for Indian scientists in all branches of science and technology. In August 2019, Dr. Chandrima Shaha was appointed as the president of Indian National Science Acade ...

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 ...

and the

Indian Academy of Sciences The Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore was founded by Indian Physicist and Nobel Laureate C. V. Raman, and was registered as a society on 24 April 1934. Inaugurated on 31 July 1934, it began with 65 founding fellows. The first general meet ...

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 ...

, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the

Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology 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 or fundamental, in biology, ...

, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 1997, for his contributions to chemical sciences.

Biography

A. Srikrishna, born on the New Year's Day of 1955, in

Gudivada Gudivada is a city in Krishna district of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is a municipality and the headquarters of Gudivada mandal in Gudivada revenue division. It is one of the cities in the state to be a part of Andhra Pradesh Capital ...

, a small town in Krishna district of the south Indian state of

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

, did his graduate studies at ANR College of Nagarjuna University in 1973 and completed a master's degree from

Andhra University Andhra University ( IAST: ''Āndhra Vișvakalāpariṣhat'') is a public university located in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India. It was established in 1926. History King Vikram Deo Verma, the Maharaja of Jeypore was one of the biggest d ...

in 1975. Enrolling at

University of Hyderabad The University of Hyderabad (IAST: ''Hydarāvād visvavidyālayamu'') is a top ranking public central research university located in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. Founded in 1974, this mostly residential campus has more than 5,000 students a ...

under the guidance of

Goverdhan Mehta Goverdhan Mehta FNA, FASc, FTWAS, FRS, FRSC (born 26 June 1943) is an Indian researcher and scientist. Career Mehta received his BSc and MSc from the BITS Pilani and PhD from Pune University. His post-doctoral research was at the Mich ...

, a

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

recipient and

Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Sir Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar OBE, FNI, FASc, FRS, FRIC, FInstP (21 February 1894 – 1 January 1955) was an Indian colloid chemist, academic and scientific administrator. The first director-general of the Council of Scientific and Indust ...

laureate, he secured an MPhil in synthetic organic chemistry in 1976 and a PhD in 1981 for his thesis, ''Triquinanes – synthesis and transformations'', thus becoming the first PhD awardee of the university. Moving to the US in 1982, he stayed there to complete his post-doctoral studies at the laboratory of

Philip Eaton Philip E. Eaton (born 1936) is a Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at the University of Chicago. He and his fellow researchers were the first to synthesize the "impossible" cubane molecule in 1964.P. Eaton and T. W. Cole, The Cubane System, J. Am. ...

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

and later with

Gilbert Stork Gilbert Stork (December 31, 1921 – October 21, 2017) was an organic chemist. For a quarter of a century he was the Eugene Higgins Professor of Chemistry Emeritus at Columbia University. He is known for making significant contributions to the t ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. He returned to India in 1985 to join the

as a teaching faculty at the department of organic chemistry where he spent the rest of his career. He died on 20 January 2013, at the age 58, while serving as a professor. During his tenure at IISc, he held various positions such as that of an assistant professor (from 1989), associate professor (from 1994), professor (from 1999) and as the chair of the department (2003–05).

Legacy

Srikrishna focused his researches on organic synthesis and his studies have widened the understanding of the synthesis of natural products especially radical cyclisation and annulation based strategies. His contributions are reported in the

racemic In chemistry, a racemic mixture, or racemate (), is one that has equal amounts of left- and right-handed enantiomers of a chiral molecule or salt. Racemic mixtures are rare in nature, but many compounds are produced industrially as racemates. ...

and enantiomeric synthesis of natural products and development of new reagents used in selective organic transformations. His researches have been published by way of several peer-reviewed articles; ResearchGate, an online article repository has listed 379 of them. He sat in the editorial boards of the ''Proceedings of the Indian National Science Academy'' during 2002–05 and the ''Indian Journal of Chemistry'', Section B in 2002 and guided 23 doctoral scholars in their studies.

Awards and honors

Srikrishna received the Young Scientist Medal of the Indian National Science Academy in 1987 and Dr. S. Husain Zaheer Young Scientist Award of Zaheer Science Foundation in 1993. The B. M. Birla Science Award for Chemistry reached him in 1994 and the

Indian Chemical Society The Indian Chemical Society is a scientific society dedicated in the field of chemistry from India. It was established in 1924 with Prafulla Chandra Ray as its founding president. The same year the society started to publish its "Quarterly Journa ...

awarded him the Professor R. D. Desai 80th Birthday Commemoration Award in 1996. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research awarded him the

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 or fundamental, in biology, ...

, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 1997. He was an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies, viz. the

and the

(2002). A. B. Kulkarni Endowment Lecture of

Bombay University The University of Mumbai is a collegiate, state-owned, public research university in Mumbai. The University of Mumbai is one of the largest universities in the world. , the university had 711 affiliated colleges. Ratan Tata is the appointed ...

(1998), Professor S. Swaminathan Endowment Award of the

University of Madras The University of Madras (informally known as Madras University) is a public state university in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Established in 1857, it is one of the oldest and among the most prestigious universities in India, incorporated by an a ...

(2002–03), Acharya J. C. Ghosh Memorial Lecture of Indian Chemical Society (2008) are some of the notable award orations delivered by Srikrishna.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Srikrishna, Adusumilli Recipients of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in Chemical Science 1955 births Indian scientific authors Fellows of the Indian Academy of Sciences Fellows of the Indian National Science Academy Indian organic chemists Fellows of The National Academy of Sciences, India People from Krishna district Andhra University alumni University of Chicago alumni Columbia University alumni Indian Institute of Science faculty 2013 deaths Scientists from Andhra Pradesh University of Hyderabad alumni

Biography

Legacy

Awards and honors

See also

References