Sunil Kumar Podder (1 February 1937 – 22 April 2023) was an Indian molecular

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...

and

biophysicist Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations. ...

, known for his biophysical studies on

Ligand In coordination chemistry, a ligand is an ion or molecule ( functional group) that binds to a central metal atom to form a coordination complex. The bonding with the metal generally involves formal donation of one or more of the ligand's elec ...

. Focusing his researches on the recognition processes in biological systems and their chemical specificity, he proposed a model for measuring the specificity using ''free energy of association of amino acids of proteins with nucleic acid bases''. Podder took his doctorate under noted polymer chemist Sadhan Basu, subsequently conducting post-doctoral studies at the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the univers ...

and the

Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry The Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry (german: Max-Planck-Institut für biophysikalische Chemie), also known as the Karl-Friedrich Bonhoeffer Institute (german: Karl-Friedrich-Bonhoeffer-Institut), was a research institute of the Ma ...

; he studied under

Manfred Eigen Manfred Eigen (; 9 May 1927 – 6 February 2019) was a German biophysical chemist who won the 1967 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on measuring fast chemical reactions. Eigen's research helped solve major problems in physical chemistry and ...

at the latter institution. A former member of faculty at the department of biochemistry of 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 ...

where he taught from 1972 to 1997, and a life member of the Indian Biophysical Society, he published several articles detailing his research findings in peer reviewed journals and has presented many papers. 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 1982, for his contributions to biological sciences.

References

Recipients of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in Biological Science 1937 births 2023 deaths Indian molecular biologists Indian biophysicists Academic staff of the Indian Institute of Science 20th-century Indian biologists {{India-scientist-stub

See also

References