Vinod Bhakuni (1962–2011) was an Indian molecular biophysicist and the head of the Molecular and Structural Biology Division of the

Central Drug Research Institute The Central Drug Research Institute is a multidisciplinary research laboratory in Lucknow, India, employing scientific personnel from various areas of biomedical sciences. Prof. Tapas Kumar Kundu, a molecular biologist, academician and recip ...

(CDRI). He was the founder of the Protein Chemistry laboratory of CDRI and was known for his contributions to the study of

protein folding Protein folding is the physical process by which a protein chain is translated to its native three-dimensional structure, typically a "folded" conformation by which the protein becomes biologically functional. Via an expeditious and reproduc ...

. 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 Go ...

, he was 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 Acade ...

and the National Academy of Sciences, 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 ...

, 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 2006, for his contributions to biological sciences.

Biography

Vinod Bhakuni, born on 24 May 1962 in

Pithoragarh district Pithoragarh district is the easternmost district in the state of Uttarakhand. It is located in the Himalayas and has an area of and a population of 483,439 (as of 2011). The city of Pithoragarh, located in Saur Valley, is its headquarters. T ...

in the Indian state of

Uttarakhand Uttarakhand ( , or ; , ), also known as Uttaranchal ( ; the official name until 2007), is a state in the northern part of India. It is often referred to as the "Devbhumi" (literally 'Land of the Gods') due to its religious significance and ...

, did his graduate and master's studies at the

University of Lucknow The University of Lucknow (informally known as Lucknow University, and LU) is a public state university based in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Founded in 1920, the University of Lucknow is one of the oldest government owned institutions of higher ed ...

and joined

(CDRI) for his doctoral studies under the guidance of C. M. Gupta, a

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. While pursuing the studies, he also taught at the institute till 1984 and after securing a PhD, he moved to

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

for his post-doctoral studies at Ernesto Freire's laboratory in 1989. Returning to India in 1992, he joined CDRI as a scientist at its Molecular and Structural Biology Division and spent his entire career there, reaching the position of the head of the division. Bhakuni was married to Neelam and the couple had a son, Abhyudai and a daughter, Harshita. The family lived in Lucknow and it was here he died, aged 49, on 15 July 2011 at Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences where he had been admitted after suffering a heart attack.

Legacy

His researches have assisted in a wider understanding of the regulation of the functional activity of catalytic domains in proteins. He was known to have worked deeply on the

pathways and elucidated the folding patterns as well as the role of 8-Anilinonaphthalene-1-sulfonic acid (ANS) in protein refolding. His group at CDRI is credited with the first demonstration of ''

stoichiometry Stoichiometry refers to the relationship between the quantities of reactants and products before, during, and following chemical reactions. Stoichiometry is founded on the law of conservation of mass where the total mass of the reactants equ ...

of the cofactor in serine hydroxyl methyl transferase (SHMT) of

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 it ...

'' and were the pioneers in deciphering the mechanism of action of

Hyaluronate lyase The enzyme hyaluronate lyase () catalyzes the chemical reaction :Cleaves hyaluronate chains at a β-D-GalNAc-(1→4)-β-D-GlcA bond, ultimately breaking the polysaccharide down to 3-(4-deoxy-β-D-gluc-4-enuronosyl)-''N''-acetyl-D-glucosamine This ...

s (HLs) from

Streptococci ''Streptococcus'' is a genus of gram-positive ' (plural ) or spherical bacteria that belongs to the family Streptococcaceae, within the order Lactobacillales (lactic acid bacteria), in the phylum Bacillota. Cell division in streptococci occu ...

and

bacteriophages A bacteriophage (), also known informally as a ''phage'' (), is a duplodnaviria virus that infects and replicates within bacteria and archaea. The term was derived from "bacteria" and the Greek φαγεῖν ('), meaning "to devour". Bacterio ...

. He published his research findings by way of a number of articles published in peer-reviewed journals and many online article repositories have listed several of them. He mentored over 20 scholars in their doctoral researches and held one US patent for his work. His efforts were also reported in founding the protein chemistry laboratory at CDRI.

Awards and honors

During the early stages of his researches, the

awarded Bhakuni the CSIR Young Scientist Award in 1996; CSIR would again honor him a decade later with the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 2006. He received the

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 2002 and the Raman Research Fellowship in 2003, the tenancy of the fellowship running during 2003–04. He was an elected fellow of three major Indian science academies,

(2004), National Academy of Sciences, India and the

(2008) and a recipient of the P. B. Rama Rao Award which he received in 2006. The Indian Society of Chemists and Biologists have instituted an annual award, ''Dr. Vinod Bhakuni Memorial ISCB Award'', for honoring research excellence in the fields of chemical and biological sciences and the Uttarakhand State Council for Science and Technology (UCOST) has named an auditorium, ''Dr. Vinod Bhakuni Memorial Hall'', in his honor.

Selected bibliography

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References

External links