P. N. Rangarajan
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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 the Indian Institute of Science. Prof Rangarajan is currently the Chairman of the Department of Biochemistry at Indian Institute of Science. Known for his research on eukaryotic
gene 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 ...
, Rangarajan is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies viz. National Academy of Sciences, India, Indian Academy of Sciences and Indian National Science Academy. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Medical Sciences in 2007.


Biography

P. N. Rangarajan, born in
Bengaluru Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...
in the south Indian state of Karnataka, secured a PhD from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in 1989 and did his post doctoral work at
Salk Institute for Biological Studies The Salk Institute for Biological Studies is a scientific research institute located in the La Jolla community of San Diego, California, U.S. The independent, non-profit institute was founded in 1960 by Jonas Salk, the developer of the polio vacci ...
during 1990-92. After serving
Howard Hughes Medical Institute The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an American non-profit medical research organization based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It was founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes, an American business magnate, investor, record-setting pilot, engineer, fil ...
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 how neurotropic viruses induce changes in eukaryotic
gene 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 ...
in humans. He leads a team of scientists engaged in the studies of '' Pichia pastoris'', a methylotrophic yeast species, with regard to its transcription factors and the regulation of carbon metabolism. He has also done extensive work on vaccine development against infectious diseases such as rabies, hepatitis B and Japanese encephalitis and he and his colleagues were successful in developing a new DNA-based vaccine against rabies. Later, they improved the vaccine performance by combining the DNA-based rabies vaccine with a controlled quantity of inactivated virus prepared through cell culture. The work earned Rangarajan and his colleagues Patent Cooperation Treaty and Indian patents and the vaccine, reportedly cheaper to produce than conventional cell culture rabies vaccines, is being marketed by
Indian Immunologicals Limited Indian Immunologicals Limited or IIL is a subsidiary of National Dairy Development Board. It is based in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. IIL is registered in India as a Public Limited Company under the Companies Act, 1956 (Ministry Of Corporate Af ...
, under the brand name, ''Dinarab''. His studies have been documented by way of a number of articles of which many have been listed by online article repositories such as Google Scholar 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'' ...
. Rangarajan's work has attracted research by other scientists and he has delivered invited speeches or keynote addresses including the lecture on ''Gene Regulation in Eukaryotes: Diversity in general Transcription factors'' at IIT Madras and the address on ''Transcriptional interference in the methylotrophic yeast, Pichia pastoris'' at
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Thiruvananthapuram Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Thiruvananthapuram (abbreviated as IISER Thiruvananthapuram or IISER-TVM) is an autonomous public university located in Thiruvananthapuram, India. The institute is one of the seven IISERs esta ...
in October 2012. He was the co-convenor of the lecture workshop on ''Recent Advances in Biotechnology of Health and Disease'' (BHD-2011) organized by Madurai Kamaraj University in 2011 and has been involved in conducting open courses on ''Eukaryotic Gene Expression''. Rangarajan is married to Radha and the couple has two children, Karthik and Meghana. The family lives in Rajajinagar in Bengaluru.


Awards and honors

Rangarajan received 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 ...
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 ...
in 2001. The National Academy of Sciences, India elected him as a fellow in 2002. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research awarded him Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, one of the highest Indian science awards in 2007. The Indian Academy of Sciences elected him as a fellow the same year and he became an elected fellow of the Indian National Science Academy in 2017.


Selected bibliography

* * * * *


See also

* Rabies vaccine *
Foot-and-mouth disease Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) or hoof-and-mouth disease (HMD) is an infectious and sometimes fatal viral disease that affects cloven-hoofed animals, including domestic and wild bovids. The virus causes a high fever lasting two to six days, followe ...
*
Plasmodium falciparum ''Plasmodium falciparum'' is a Unicellular organism, unicellular protozoan parasite of humans, and the deadliest species of ''Plasmodium'' that causes malaria in humans. The parasite is transmitted through the bite of a female ''Anopheles'' mosqu ...
*
Catabolite repression Carbon catabolite repression, or simply catabolite repression, is an important part of global control system of various bacteria and other microorganisms. Catabolite repression allows microorganisms to adapt quickly to a preferred (rapidly metaboli ...


Notes


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Rangarajan, P. N. 1963 births Indian medical writers 20th-century Indian inventors Scientists from Bangalore Indian virologists Indian biochemists Indian Institute of Science alumni Academic staff of the Indian Institute of Science Fellows of the Indian Academy of Sciences Fellows of the Indian National Science Academy Fellows of The National Academy of Sciences, India Recipients of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in Medical Science Living people 21st-century Indian inventors