Kuppamuthu Dharmalingam (born 3 January 1949) is an Indian proteomicist, geneticist, academic and the founder of ''Centre of Excellence in Bioinformatics'' at

Madurai Kamaraj University Madurai Kamaraj University (MKU) is a public state university located in Madurai city, in southern Tamil Nadu, India, established in 1966. MKU is one of the 15 universities in India with the University with Potential for Excellence status, wh ...

. He is known for his contributions in the fields of eye disease proteomics and

mutagenic In genetics, a mutagen is a physical or chemical agent that permanently changes genetic material, usually DNA, in an organism and thus increases the frequency of mutations above the natural background level. As many mutations can cause cancer i ...

DNA repair in

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 '' Esc ...

. He is an elected fellow of 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 ...

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 ...

. 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 1992, for his contributions to biological sciences.

Biography

Born on 3 January 1949 in

Pollachi Pollachi is a town and a taluk headquarters in Coimbatore district, Tamil Nadu state, India. Located about to the south of Coimbatore, it is the second largest town in the district after Coimbatore. Pollachi is a popular Marketplace for jag ...

, a border town in the

South India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union territ ...

n state of

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...

, Kuppamuthu Dharmalingam did his schooling at Gandhi Kala Nilayam High School and secured his graduate and master's degrees in zoology from Thiagarajar College,

Madurai Madurai ( , also , ) is a major city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is the cultural capital of Tamil Nadu and the administrative headquarters of Madurai District. As of the 2011 census, it was the third largest Urban agglomeration in ...

before enrolling for PhD at

(MKU) under the guidance of J. Jayaraman, working on ''yeast mitochondrial membrane

biogenesis Spontaneous generation is a superseded scientific theory that held that living creatures could arise from nonliving matter and that such processes were commonplace and regular. It was hypothesized that certain forms, such as fleas, could arise ...

''. After obtaining his doctoral degree, he did his post-doctoral research with Edward D. Goldberg at

Tufts University School of Medicine The Tufts University School of Medicine is the medical school of Tufts University, a private research university in Massachusetts. It was established in 1893 and is located on the university's health sciences campus in downtown Boston. The '' ...

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...

of bacteriophages. Returning to India, he joined MKU and spent his entire academic career there but had a short stint at

University of Geneva The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin as a theological seminary. It remained focused on theology until the 17th centur ...

in between. During his early researches on

, a

gram-negative Gram-negative bacteria are bacteria that do not retain the crystal violet stain used in the Gram staining method of bacterial differentiation. They are characterized by their cell envelopes, which are composed of a thin peptidoglycan cell wa ...

bacterium, he discovered the ''induction of mutagenic DNA repair during restriction of nonglucosylated T4 DNA'' and the ''alleviation of restriction by SOS functions''. Subsequently, he studied the

pathogenesis Pathogenesis is the process by which a disease or disorder develops. It can include factors which contribute not only to the onset of the disease or disorder, but also to its progression and maintenance. The word comes from Greek πάθος ''pat ...

Mycobacterium leprae ''Mycobacterium leprae'' (also known as the leprosy bacillus or Hansen's bacillus), is one of the two species of bacteria that cause Hansen’s disease (leprosy), a chronic but curable infectious disease that damages the peripheral nerves an ...

using proteomics tools and discovered the ''single nucleotide polymorphism in the unique small alpha crystalline like heat shock protein'' in the

gram-positive In bacteriology, gram-positive bacteria are bacteria that give a positive result in the Gram stain test, which is traditionally used to quickly classify bacteria into two broad categories according to their type of cell wall. Gram-positive bact ...

bacterium. His researches have been documented in over 200 articles; ResearchGate, an online repository of scientific papers, has listed 48 of them. It was during his tenure at the MKU, the ''Centre of Excellence in Bioinformatics'' was established at the university in 1986. He is a life member of the Proteomics Society, India (PSI), editor of its newsletter, a former member of its executive council and was the convener of the workshop, ''Clinical Proteomics: Methods and Applications'', conducted by PSI in October 2014. He is a Distinguished Research Professor of 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 ...

and an elected fellow of the

and the

. The

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 1992. Post retirement, Dharmalingam has been working since 2013 as a director of Aravind Medical Research Foundation, a Tamil Nadu-based research centre, ophthalmic hospital chain and a

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of ...

collaborating centre for the prevention of blindness.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dharmalingam, Kuppamuthu Recipients of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in Biological Science 1949 births People from Coimbatore district Tamil scientists Indian geneticists Proteomics Indian scientific authors Madurai Kamaraj University alumni Tufts University School of Medicine alumni University of Geneva alumni Fellows of the Indian Academy of Sciences Fellows of The National Academy of Sciences, India Living people 20th-century Indian biologists Scientists from Madurai Scientists from Tamil Nadu

Biography

See also

References

External links