Sudhir Kumar Sopory (born on 7 January 1948) is an Indian educationist, plant physiologist, scientist and former vice chancellor of

Jawaharlal Nehru University Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU; ISO: Javāharalāla Neharū Viśvavidyālaya) is a public research university located in Delhi, India. It was established in 1969 and named after Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister. The university ...

, New Delhi. He is known to be the first to purify a

protein kinase C In cell biology, protein kinase C, commonly abbreviated to PKC (EC 2.7.11.13), is a family of protein kinase enzymes that are involved in controlling the function of other proteins through the phosphorylation of hydroxyl groups of serine and t ...

activity from plants and is credited with the identification of

topoisomerase DNA topoisomerases (or topoisomerases) are enzymes that catalyze changes in the topological state of DNA, interconverting relaxed and supercoiled forms, linked (catenated) and unlinked species, and knotted and unknotted DNA. Topological issues in ...

as a substrate of protein kinase C. He is an elected Fellow of several major Indian science academies and

The World Academy of Sciences The World Academy of Sciences for the advancement of science in developing countries (TWAS) is a North–south research partnerships, merit-based science academy established for developing countries, uniting more than 1,400 scientists in some 1 ...

(TWAS) and is a recipient of many honours, including the 1987 Shanti Swarup Bhatangar Prize, the highest Indian award in the science and technology categories. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of the

Padma Shri The Padma Shri (IAST: ''padma śrī'', lit. 'Lotus Honour'), also spelled Padma Shree, is the fourth-highest Indian honours system, civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. In ...

, in 2007, for his contributions to science and technology.

Biography

Born on 7 January 1948, Sopory secured his graduate degree (BSc) in 1966 and postgraduate degree (MSc) in 1968 from

Sri Pratap College Sri Pratap College, commonly known as SP College, is an academic and professional college in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India. The college has been accredited by NAAC with an 'A+' Grade. It is the oldest institute of higher education in the K ...

Sri Nagar Srinagar (; ) is a city in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir in the disputed Kashmir region.The application of the term "administered" to the various regions of Kashmir and a mention of the Kashmir dispute is supported by the tertiary so ...

of the

University of Kashmir University of Kashmir (UoK), informally known as Kashmir University (KU), is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public State university (India), state university located in the Hazratbal neighbourhood, on the western side of ...

. Subsequently, he moved to Delhi to start his career by joining

University of Delhi The Delhi University (DU, ISO 15919, ISO: ), also and officially known as the University of Delhi, is a collegiate university, collegiate research university, research Central university (India), central university located in Delhi, India. It ...

as a member of faculty and pursued his doctoral studies there to obtain a PhD in plant molecular biology in 1973. After securing the doctoral degree, he joined

in 1973 as an assistant professor and worked there till his superannuation in 1996, holding positions such as associate professor (1978–1984), professor (1985–1996) and Hostel warden. In between, he worked at various overseas educational institutions;

Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research The Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research was founded in Müncheberg, Germany in 1928 as part of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft. The founding director, Erwin Baur, initiated breeding programmes with fruits and berries, and basic res ...

, Cologne, (1976–1978),

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...

at their Department of Botany as a visiting

Fulbright fellow The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people o ...

(1981–1982), USDA Plant Molecular Biology Laboratory, Maryland and

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...

as a visiting Humboldt Professor (1991–1992). After his superannuation, he joined

International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology The International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) was established as a project of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in 1983. The Organisation has three Component laboratories with over 45 ongo ...

(ICGEB) New Delhi, as a group leader of research in plant molecular biology in 1997, and became the interim director of the institution in 2010. In 2011, he was appointed as the vice chancellor of

, a post he held till 13 January 2016).

Legacy

During his researches at

, Cologne, Sopory developed a plant breeding methodology to produce monohaploids of potato, in 1978. His researches at

assisted in the discovery of the "role of calcium and calmodulin" in higher plants and, while in Maryland, he worked on

D1 protein Photosynthetic reaction centre proteins are main protein components of photosynthetic reaction centres (RCs) of bacteria and plants. They are transmembrane proteins embedded in the chloroplast thylakoid or bacterial cell membrane. Plants, algae, ...

to find the mechanism behind it. In the early Nineties, he worked under R. Hermann on ''promoter analysis of light regulated genes encoding proteins involved in photosynthesis''. His researches on the

gene expression Gene expression is the process (including its Regulation of gene expression, regulation) by which information from a gene is used in the synthesis of a functional gene product that enables it to produce end products, proteins or non-coding RNA, ...

and the activity of nitrate

reductase In biochemistry, an oxidoreductase is an enzyme that catalyzes the transfer of electrons from one molecule, the reductant, also called the electron donor, to another, the oxidant, also called the electron acceptor. This group of enzymes usually uti ...

revealed the effect of light on the turnover of

phosphoinositide Phosphatidylinositol or inositol phospholipid is a biomolecule. It was initially called "inosite" when it was discovered by Léon Maquenne and Johann Joseph von Scherer in the late 19th century. It was discovered in bacteria but later also found ...

cycle. This helped explain light signal transduction in plants. Sopory is reported to be the first to purify a

Protein Kinase C In cell biology, protein kinase C, commonly abbreviated to PKC (EC 2.7.11.13), is a family of protein kinase enzymes that are involved in controlling the function of other proteins through the phosphorylation of hydroxyl groups of serine and t ...

from plants and he has been successful in identifying

topoisomerase I DNA topoisomerase 1 is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the ''TOP1'' gene. It is a DNA topoisomerase, an enzyme that catalyzes the transient breaking and rejoining of a single strand of DNA. Function This gene encodes a DNA topoisomeras ...

as a substrate of

in plants. Based on his work on dehydration stress and salinity-related

gene regulation Regulation of gene expression, or gene regulation, includes a wide range of mechanisms that are used by cells to increase or decrease the production of specific gene products (protein or RNA). Sophisticated programs of gene expression are wide ...

, he is known to have developed a new methodology for gene amplification and a

Polymerase chain reaction The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a method widely used to make millions to billions of copies of a specific DNA sample rapidly, allowing scientists to amplify a very small sample of DNA (or a part of it) sufficiently to enable detailed st ...

-based protocol for manipulating differentially-expressed genes and their promoters. Working on rice (

Oryza sativa ''Oryza sativa'', having the common name Asian cultivated rice, is the much more common of the two rice species cultivated as a cereal, the other species being ''Oryza glaberrima, O. glaberrima'', African rice. It was History of rice cultivation ...

) and

Pennisetum ''Cenchrus'' is a widespread genus of plants in the grass family, native to tropical and warm temperate regions of the world. Its species are native to many countries in Asia, Africa, Australia, the Americas, and various oceanic islands. Comm ...

, he evolved new methodologies for producing stress tolerant transgenic plants. His researches on glyoxalase system in plants explained how it affected the stress environment and he propounded a process how transgenic plants capable of growing in conditions of high salinity could be developed by manipulating glyoxalase I and

glyoxalase II The enzyme hydroxyacylglutathione hydrolase (EC 3.1.2.6, systematic name = ''S''-(2-hydroxyacyl)glutathione hydrolase) catalysis, catalyzes the following reaction: :''S''-(2-hydroxyacyl)glutathione + H2O = glutathione + a 2-hydroxy carboxylate Th ...

, two enzymes related to the detoxification of

methylglyoxal Methylglyoxal (MGO) is the organic compound with the formula CH3C(O)CHO. It is a reduced derivative of pyruvic acid. It is a reactive compound that is implicated in the biology of diabetes. Methylglyoxal is produced industrially by degradation ...

, the organic compound known to increase the level of stress response of plants. Sopory's researches have been documented in over 250 articles published in peer reviewed journals;

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 science articles have listed 242 of them. He has been the editor of 13 books on the subject and has contributed 53 chapters to books written/edited by others besides co-authoring the Hostel Manual for

. He is the president of the Indian Society of Plant Physiology and the vice president 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 ...

, Allahabad. He has served as the vice president of such organizations as Indian Society for Plant Physiology and Biochemistry (2001–2003), Indian National Science Academy (2004–2006) and the Society for Plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology, New Delhi (2009–2011) and is a former secretary of the Plant Tissue Culture Association of India (2001–2010). During his stint as the vice chancellor at

, the institution is reported to have acquired a new 1000-acre campus in South Delhi. The university started new doctoral research courses in Energy studies, Human rights,

Silk Route The Silk Road was a network of Asian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over , it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the ...

studies, Climate change and Biotechnology and inaugurated a new website and a cyber library during this period. He has also mentored many students in their doctoral studies.

Awards and honours

Four of the major Indian science academies have elected Sopory as their fellow; The

Indian Academy of Sciences The Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore was founded by Indian Physicist and List of Nobel laureates, Nobel Laureate Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, C. V. Raman, and was registered as a society on 27 April 1934. Inaugurated on 31 July 1934, it ...

(IAS) in 1992,

(NASI) in 1993, 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 ...

(INSA) the next year, and the

National Academy of Agricultural Sciences The National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS) is a Government of India funded agency, established in 1990, is a research platform in the fields of crop husbandry, animal husbandry, fisheries and agro-forestry. It acts as a research base for ...

(NAAS) in 2002.

(TWAS) followed suit in 2005. He has delivered many notable award lectures such as Gadgil Memorial Award Lecture (2000) of the Plant Tissue Culture Association, P. Maheshwari Award Lecture (200) and Sisir Kumar Mitra Memorial Lecture Award (2011–2012) of the

, Platinum Jubilee Award Lecture (2003) of the

Indian Science Congress Association Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA) is a premier scientific organisation of India with headquarters at Kolkata, West Bengal. The association started in the year 1914 in Calcutta and it meets annually in the first week of January. It h ...

, N. Narayana Memorial Award Lecture (2005) of the Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore, G. V. Joshi Lecture Award (2010) of the Indian Society of Plant Physiology, and NCL Foundation Day lecture (2015) of the

National Chemical Laboratory The National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) is an Indian government laboratory based in Pune, in western India. Popularly known as NCL, a constituent member of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) India, it was established in ...

,(CSIR) Pune. R. N. Singh Memorial Lecture (2000) of

Banaras Hindu University Banaras Hindu University (BHU), formerly Benares Hindu University, is a collegiate, central, and research university located in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India, and founded in 1916. The university incorporated the Central Hindu College, ...

, Varanasi, Panchanan Maheshwari Memorial Lecture (2001) of

Delhi University The Delhi University (DU, ISO 15919, ISO: ), also and officially known as the University of Delhi, is a collegiate university, collegiate research university, research Central university (India), central university located in Delhi, India. It ...

, N. B. Das Memorial Award Lecture (2002) of the Society of Plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology, Tenth Godnev Award lecture (2003) of the Belarus Academy of Sciences, Dr. Yellapragada Subba Row Award Lecture (2009) of Indraprastha University, Delhi, First H. C. Arya Lecture Award (2011) of the Plant Tissue Culture Association ( India), Dr. Gopinath Sahu Memorial Award Lecture (2014) of the

Central Rice Research Institute The National Rice Research Institute was established in since1966 under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) but it was set on April 23, 1946 at Bidhyadharpur, Cuttack, Odisha with an experimental farm land of 60 hectares. Research T ...

, Cuttack, and Padmapani Award Lecture (2014) at Tibet House, Delhi are some of the other lectures delivered by him. S. P. Ray-Chaudhuri 75th Birthday Endowment Lecture Award of the Indian Society of Cell Biology, delivered in 2009 was the first instance a plant biologist was given the opportunity to deliver the address. In 1985, Sopory received the ''Career Award'' of the University Grants Commission, followed by ''Professor Hira Lal Chakravorty Award'' of the

, the next year. One year later, the

Council of Scientific and Industrial Research The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR; IAST: ''vaigyanik tathā audyogik anusandhāna pariṣada'') is a research and development (R&D) organisation in India to promote scientific, industrial and economic growth. Headquarter ...

(CSIR) awarded him the

Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize Shanti or Shanthi may refer to: In Sanskrit * Inner peace, a state of being mentally and spiritually at peace, with enough knowledge and understanding to keep oneself strong in the face of discord or stress * Kshanti, one of the paramitas of B ...

, the highest Indian award for achievement in science and technology. The year 2001 brought him two awards, ''Salgram Sinha Award'' of the

and ''Birbal Sahni Medal'' of the

Indian Botanical Society The Indian Botanical Society (IBS) is the national learned society for botany, botanists of India. It was founded in 1920. The Society's activities include lectures, symposia, field excursions, field projects and an annual society meeting for exch ...

. The

(ISCA) honoured him with the ''Birbal Sahni Centenary Gold Medal Award'' for Life Time Achievement in 2005 and he was included in the Republic Day honours list of 2007 by the Government of India for the civilian honour of the

. Another ISCA award, ''S. S. Katiyar Award'', reached him in 2010, the same year as he received the ''Corresponding Membership Award'' for Non-USA scientists of the American Society of Plant Biology, thus becoming the first Indian to receive the award. Two more awards followed in 2012, ''Prof. R. N. Tandon Memorial Award'' of the

and ''B. M. Johri Memorial Award'' of the Society of Plant Research. The same year, he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Science (

honoris causa An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...

) by the

and, in 2014, he received another DSc degree, from

Rani Durgavati University Rani Durgavati Vishwavidyalaya (Rani Durgavati University), also known as University of Jabalpur, is a government university in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, India. It was named after the queen Rani Durgavati. History The university was constit ...

, Jabalpur. He received two more awards in 2014, ''Jawaharlal Nehru Birth Centenary Award'' of the

and ''T. N. Khoshoo Memorial Award'' of the Orchid Society of India.

References

External links

* *

Biography

Legacy

Awards and honours

See also

References

External links

Further reading