Umesh Varshney (born 1957) is an Indian molecular biologist, academician and the head of a laboratory 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 wa ...

, Bengaluru. He is a J. C. Bose National Fellow of the Department of Science and Technology and is known for his studies on

protein synthesis Protein biosynthesis (or protein synthesis) is a core biological process, occurring inside Cell (biology), cells, homeostasis, balancing the loss of cellular proteins (via Proteolysis, degradation or Protein targeting, export) through the product ...

and DNA repair in ''Escherichia coli'' and

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 ...

. 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 ...

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 Academ ...

and the National Academy of Sciences (India), he is also a recipient of 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 Government of India. 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 l ...

, 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 science, applied or Fundamenta ...

, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 2001, and then in 2014 with the G. N. Ramachandran Gold Medal for Excellence in Biological Sciences & Technology for his contributions to biological sciences.

Biography

Umesh Varshney, born on 26 October 1957 in the Indian state of

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...

, graduated in science from

Jiwaji University Jiwaji University (JU) is a public affiliating university in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, India. The name comes from Jivajirao Scindia of Gwalior. The university was established on 23 May 1964 and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the President of India, ...

in 1975 and completed his master's degree at

G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology G. B. Pant University of Agriculture, also known as Pantnagar University, is the first agricultural university of India. It was inaugurated by Jawahar Lal Nehru on 17 November 1960 as the "Uttar Pradesh Agricultural University" (UPAU). Later the ...

in 1979. Moving to Canada, he did his doctoral studies on a Graduate Teaching Assistantship and Studentship by Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research Foundation (AHFMR) under the guidance of Lashitew Gedamu and secured his doctoral degree from the

University of Calgary The University of Calgary (U of C or UCalgary) is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The University of Calgary started in 1944 as the Calgary branch of the University of Alberta, founded in 1908, prior to being ins ...

in 1985. His post-doctoral studies were at the laboratory of Johan Hans van de Sande at the university and, later, at

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

with U. L. RajBhandary. Returning to India in 1991, he started his career at the Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology (then known as Centre for Genetic Engineering) of the

as an assistant professor, and promoted to associate professor (1997), professor (2002) and dean of the undergraduate programs and heads a laboratory while chairing the Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology of the Indian Institute of Science. He is also an honorary faculty at

Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research The Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) is a multidisciplinary research institute located at Jakkur, Bangalore, India. It was established by the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India, to ...

since 1999 and is a collaborator of the Genome Metabolism and Biostruct Laboratory, Budapest. He is currently the Chairman of the division of Biological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.

Legacy

Varhsney's researches are primarily focused in the area of protein synthesis and DNA repair in ''Escherichia'' ''coli'' and ''

''. His researches are known to have assisted in a wider understanding of the biology of mycobacterium, more specifically the interaction between ribosome recycling factor and elongation factor G as well as the

uracil Uracil () (symbol U or Ura) is one of the four nucleobases in the nucleic acid RNA. The others are adenine (A), cytosine (C), and guanine (G). In RNA, uracil binds to adenine via two hydrogen bonds. In DNA, the uracil nucleobase is replaced by ...

excision repair DNA repair is a collection of processes by which a cell identifies and corrects damage to the DNA molecules that encode its genome. In human cells, both normal metabolic activities and environmental factors such as radiation can cause DNA dama ...

pathway. These studies are reported to have been aimed at developing newer drug targets and the attenuated strains. He has detailed his research findings by way of articles published in peer-reviewed journals and online scientific article repositories like

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'' ...

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes p ...

and PubFacts have listed many of them. He was one of the organizers of the 2''1st International tRNA Workshop hel''d at Indian Institute of Science in December 2005, has guided several scholars in their doctoral researches and delivered keynote addresses at many science conferences.

Awards and honors

In 1999, when 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 India instituted the

as one of the prestigious science awards in the country, Umesh Varshney was among the first recipients of the award. 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 science, applied or Fundamenta ...

in 2001, and then in 2014 he was awarded the G. N. Ramachandran Gold Medal for Excellence in Biological Sciences & Technology. In 2001, he received the P. S. Sarma Memorial Award of the Society of Biological Chemists (India) (SBC. A life member of the SBC, he received the Life Sciences Research Award of

Novo Nordisk Novo Nordisk A/S is a Danish multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Bagsværd, Denmark, with production facilities in nine countries, and affiliates or offices in five countries. Novo Nordisk is controlled by majority shareholder ...

Education Foundation in 2002 and the year 2008 brought him the elected fellowship of the

and the J. C. Bose National Fellowship of the Department of Science and Technology of India.

Selected bibliography

* * * * * *

Notes

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Varshney, Umesh Recipients of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in Biological Science 1957 births Living people Scientists from Madhya Pradesh Jiwaji University alumni University of Calgary alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Academic staff of the Indian Institute of Science Indian molecular biologists Indian scientific authors Fellows of the Indian Academy of Sciences Fellows of the Indian National Science Academy N-BIOS Prize recipients 20th-century Indian biologists