Durai Sundar is an Indian computational biologist, bioinformatician and the current Head of the Department of Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology at the

Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT- Delhi) is a public institute of technology located in Delhi, India. It is one of the 23 Indian Institutes of Technology created to be a Centre of Excellence for India's training, research and developme ...

. He is known for his studies in the fields of

genome editing Genome editing, or genome engineering, or gene editing, is a type of genetic engineering in which DNA is inserted, deleted, modified or replaced in the genome of a living organism. Unlike early genetic engineering techniques that randomly insert ge ...

tool designing, biological studies of natural drugs and

metabolic engineering Metabolic engineering is the practice of optimizing genetic and regulatory processes within cells to increase the cell's production of a certain substance. These processes are chemical networks that use a series of biochemical reactions and enzy ...

as well as for his participation in the Indo-Japanese collaborative research initiatives on anti-cancer drug development and is a life member of the

National Academy of Sciences, India The National Academy of Sciences, India, also known as NASI, was established in 1930 and is the oldest science academy of India. It is located in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. Prof. Meghnad Saha was the founder president. Fellows * Suddhasatwa Bas ...

. 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. ...

of the Government of India awarded him 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 ...

, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to biosciences, in 2012.

Biography

Durai Sundar, born in the south Indian state of

Pondicherry Pondicherry, officially known as Puducherry, is the Capital city, capital and most populous city of the Puducherry (union territory), Union Territory of Puducherry in India. The city is in the Puducherry district on the southeast coast of Indi ...

, did his undergraduate and post-graduate studies as well as his doctoral studies at

Pondicherry University Pondicherry University, also known as PU, is a central research university located in Kalapet, Pondicherry in Union Territory of Puducherry, India. It was established by an Act of Parliament in 1985 by the Department of Higher Education, Min ...

and completed his post-doctoral work at

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

. Subsequently, he joined the

(IITD) as a member of faculty where he is an associate professor, holding the Dupont Young Professor chair. At IITD, he chairs Tryst, IIT Delhi and serves as an associate faculty at the School of Interdisciplinary Research and the Value Education Centre (NRCVEE). He also coordinates the Bioinformatics Centre, a project funded by the

and DaiLab, a collaborative biomedical initiative between IIT Delhi and the

National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology The , or AIST, is a Japanese research facility headquartered in Tokyo, and most of the workforce is located in Tsukuba Science City, Ibaraki, and in several cities throughout Japan. The institute is managed to integrate scientific and enginee ...

(AIST, Japan).

Professional profile

Sundar is known to have carried out research in the fields of

tool designing, biological studies of natural drugs and

. When DaiLab was established at IIT Delhi, he became the coordinator of the initiative. He was a part of the team which studied the anti-cancer properties of ''

Withania somnifera ''Withania somnifera'', known commonly as ashwagandha, is an evergreen shrub in the Solanaceae family that is native to the Middle East and North Africa, other African regions, southern Europe, and Indian subcontinent. Several other species in ...

'', commonly known as Ashwagandha, and the team identified withanolide,

withaferin A Withaferin A is a steroidal lactone, derived from ''Acnistus arborescens'', ''Withania somnifera'' and other members of family Solanaceae. It is the first member of the withanolide class of ergostane type product to be discovered. Structure Wit ...

, and withanone as the three steroidal contents of the plant which gives the property to it; they published their findings by way of an article published in ''Cell Death and Disease'' journal in 2017. His studies have been documented by way of a number of articles 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' ...

, an online repository of scientific articles has listed 80 of them. Besides, he has contributed chapters to books published by others. He has also delivered invited speeches at international seminars and conferences which included the DAILAB PIKNIKH SERIES V seminar held at

Tsukuba is a city located in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. As of January 1, 2024, the city had an estimated population of 256,526 in 121,001 households and a population density of 900 persons per km2. The percentage of the population aged over 65 wa ...

, Japan in 2015.

Awards and honors

Sundar received the Swarna Jayanti Award of the

in 2005 and three honors in 2006, the Young Scientist Award and the Innovative Young Biotechnologist Award of the Department of Science and Technology as well as the Young Scientist Award of the Indian Science Congress Association. The

Indian National Science Academy The Indian National Science Academy (INSA) is a national academy in New Delhi New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three b ...

awarded him the INSA Medal for Young Scientists in 2008 and the Lady Tata Memorial Trust selected him for the Young Researcher Award in 2011; the same year as he was elected as a life member of the National Academy of Sciences, India. The

(DBT) of the Government of India awarded him the

, one of the highest Indian science awards in 2012. He received two more awards in 2013, the Young Scientist Award of the Asian Biophysics Association and the Prof. Umakant Sinha Memorial Award of the Indian Science Congress Association.

Selected bibliography

Chapters

* *

Articles

* * *

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sundar, Durai N-BIOS Prize recipients Living people Indian medical researchers Year of birth missing (living people) Scientists from Puducherry Indian bioinformaticians Pondicherry University alumni Academic staff of IIT Delhi Computational biology Johns Hopkins University alumni