Chinmoy Sankar Dey (born 18 March 1961) is an Indian

molecular biologist Molecular biology is a branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecule, molecular basis of biological activity in and between Cell (biology), cells, including biomolecule, biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactio ...

and a professor at ''Kusuma School of Biological Sciences'' of 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 ...

. Known for his research on

insulin resistance Insulin resistance (IR) is a pathological response in which cells in insulin-sensitive tissues in the body fail to respond normally to the hormone insulin or downregulate insulin receptors in response to hyperinsulinemia. Insulin is a horm ...

, Dey's is a J. C. Bose National Fellow of the Department of Science and Technology and an elected fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India and 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 ...

. 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 ...

, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Medical Sciences in 2003. 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

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. ...

Biography

S. C. Dey was born on 18 March 1961 in

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

, the capital of the Indian state of

West Bengal West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...

. He graduated in zoology from the

University of Calcutta The University of Calcutta, informally known as Calcutta University (), is a Public university, public State university (India), state university located in Kolkata, Calcutta (Kolkata), West Bengal, India. It has 151 affiliated undergraduate c ...

in 1982 and continued at the institution to obtain a master's degree in 1984. Afterwards, he joined the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, in Kolkata, as a research fellow for his doctoral studies and submitted his thesis ''Biochemical regulation of sperm motility'', which earned him a PhD from

Jadavpur University Jadavpur University ( abbr. JU) is a public state funded research university with its main campus located at Jadavpur, Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It was established on 25 July in 1906 as ''Bengal Technical Institute'' and was converted into ...

in 1990. He did his post-doctoral studies initially at

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small group of institutes ...

from 1988 to 1991 as a post-doc research fellow and later, at the

Baylor College of Medicine The Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) is a private medical school in Houston, Texas, United States. Originally as the Baylor University College of Medicine from 1903 to 1969, the college became independent with the current name and has been se ...

, as a post-doc research associate from 1991 to 1992. On his return to India in 1992, he started his career by joining the National Institute of Immunology as a pool officer, but his stay there lasted only for two years. In 1994, he moved to National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, Mohali as an assistant professor at the department of biotechnology where he served for over a decade and a half. During this period, he held positions as an associate professor (1999–2002) as well as a professor (2002–10), and he became head of the department in 2004. In 2010, he moved his base to New Delhi to join the

Indian Institute of Technology The Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) are a network of engineering and technology institutions in India. Established in 1950, they are under the purview of the Ministry of Education of the Indian Government and are governed by the Instit ...

at ''Kusuma School of Biological Sciences'' as a professor and is the head of the Central Research Facility. He leads a laboratory at IIT Delhi involved in research on Insulin-resistant diabetes and hosts a number of scholars and students. He also serves as a visiting scientist at Madras Diabetes Research Foundation (MDRF).

Legacy

Dey's research has been focusing on the drug resistance of two diseases,

leishmaniasis Leishmaniasis is a wide array of clinical manifestations caused by protozoal parasites of the Trypanosomatida genus ''Leishmania''. It is generally spread through the bite of Phlebotominae, phlebotomine Sandfly, sandflies, ''Phlebotomus'' an ...

and

diabetes Diabetes mellitus, commonly known as diabetes, is a group of common endocrine diseases characterized by sustained high blood sugar levels. Diabetes is due to either the pancreas not producing enough of the hormone insulin, or the cells of th ...

. His work on

included the development of an ''

in-vitro ''In vitro'' (meaning ''in glass'', or ''in the glass'') studies are performed with cells or biological molecules outside their normal biological context. Colloquially called " test-tube experiments", these studies in biology and its subdis ...

'' model, which has potential applications in screening anti-diabetic drugs. The model, which involved insulin-resistant cultured skeletal muscle cells, earned him a US patent. Using the model in tandem with biochemical and

gene silencing Gene silencing is the regulation of gene expression in a cell to prevent the expression of a certain gene. Gene silencing can occur during either Transcription (genetics), transcription or Translation (biology), translation and is often used in res ...

methodologies, he demonstrated that

focal adhesion kinase PTK2 protein tyrosine kinase 2 (PTK2), also known as focal adhesion kinase (FAK), is a protein that, in humans, is encoded by the ''PTK2'' gene. PTK2 is a focal adhesion-associated protein kinase involved in cellular adhesion (how cells stick to ...

s and

p38 mitogen-activated protein kinases p38 mitogen-activated protein kinases are a class of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) that are responsive to stress stimuli, such as cytokines, ultraviolet irradiation, heat shock, and osmotic shock, and are involved in cell diffe ...

could be used as possible drug targets. His team identified for the first time the

apoptosis Apoptosis (from ) is a form of programmed cell death that occurs in multicellular organisms and in some eukaryotic, single-celled microorganisms such as yeast. Biochemistry, Biochemical events lead to characteristic cell changes (Morphology (biol ...

-like cell death in

Type II topoisomerase Type II topoisomerases are topoisomerases that cut both strands of the DNA helix simultaneously in order to manage DNA tangles and supercoils. They use the hydrolysis of ATP, unlike Type I topoisomerase. In this process, these enzymes change th ...

and suggested the

enzyme An enzyme () is a protein that acts as a biological catalyst by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrate (chemistry), substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different mol ...

as a possible treatment protocol for

Leishmaniasis Leishmaniasis is a wide array of clinical manifestations caused by protozoal parasites of the Trypanosomatida genus ''Leishmania''. It is generally spread through the bite of Phlebotominae, phlebotomine Sandfly, sandflies, ''Phlebotomus'' an ...

. His findings were published in a 2005 article in ''Molecular and Biochemical Parasitology'' of

Elsevier Elsevier ( ) is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as ''The Lancet'', ''Cell (journal), Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, ...

. He also proposed

eIF4A The eukaryotic initiation factor-4A (eIF4A) family consists of 3 closely related proteins EIF4A1, EIF4A2, and EIF4A3. These factors are required for the binding of Messenger RNA, mRNA to 40S ribosome, ribosomal subunits. In addition these prot ...

, a member of a set of three related

proteins Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, re ...

, as a drug target to combat infection with ''

Leishmania donovani ''Leishmania donovani'' is a species of intracellular parasites belonging to the genus ''Leishmania'', a group of haemoflagellate kinetoplastids that cause the disease leishmaniasis. It is a human blood parasite responsible for visceral leishm ...

'', a

Miltefosine Miltefosine, sold under the trade name Impavido among others, is a medication mainly used to treat leishmaniasis and free-living amoeba infections such as '' Naegleria fowleri'' and '' Balamuthia mandrillaris''. This includes the three forms of ...

-resistant type of trypanosome causing

. His work on

myogenesis Myogenesis is the formation of skeletal muscle, skeletal muscular tissue, particularly during embryonic development. Skeletal muscle#Skeletal muscle cells, Muscle fibers generally form through the fusion of precursor cell, precursor myoblasts in ...

and

muscular dystrophy Muscular dystrophies (MD) are a genetically and clinically heterogeneous group of rare neuromuscular diseases that cause progressive weakness and breakdown of skeletal muscles over time. The disorders differ as to which muscles are primarily affe ...

showed insulin‑mediated

dephosphorylation In biochemistry, dephosphorylation is the removal of a phosphate () group from an organic compound by hydrolysis. It is a reversible post-translational modification. Dephosphorylation and its counterpart, phosphorylation, activate and deactivate e ...

PTK2 PTK2 protein tyrosine kinase 2 (PTK2), also known as focal adhesion kinase (FAK), is a protein that, in humans, is encoded by the ''PTK2'' gene. PTK2 is a focal adhesion-associated protein kinase involved in cellular adhesion (how cells stick to ...

(focal adhesion kinase) could be stopped by inhibiting the activity of the

insulin receptor The insulin receptor (IR) is a transmembrane receptor that is activated by insulin, IGF-I, IGF-II and belongs to the large class of receptor tyrosine kinase. Metabolically, the insulin receptor plays a key role in the regulation of glucose h ...

tyrosine kinase A tyrosine kinase is an enzyme that can transfer a phosphate group from ATP to the tyrosine residues of specific proteins inside a cell. It functions as an "on" or "off" switch in many cellular functions. Tyrosine kinases belong to a larger cla ...

, which was a new discovery. His research has been documented in numerous articles;

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, lists 90 of them. Besides this he has contributed chapters to two books, and his work has drawn citations from other researchers.

James Watson James Dewey Watson (born April 6, 1928) is an American molecular biology, molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist. In 1953, he co-authored with Francis Crick the academic paper in ''Nature (journal), Nature'' proposing the Nucleic acid ...

, a recipient of the

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine () is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, acco ...

in 1962, cited one of Dey's papers in his 2013 lecture at

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the discovery of double helical structure

DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...

, which was later published as an article in Lancet in 2014. He also holds a

Patent Cooperation Treaty The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is an international patent law treaty, concluded in 1970. It provides a unified procedure for filing patent applications to protect inventions in each of its contracting states. A patent application filed und ...

and his aforementioned US patent, as well as two Indian patents, and has guided students in their master's and doctoral studies. Dey was the Sectional Secretary of the 91st

Indian Science Congress 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 ...

held in 2003; he was also associated with the organization of the ''Indo‑US Symposium on Recombinant DNA Technology and Its Application in Drug Discovery'' held at

BITS, Pilani The Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani (BITS Pilani) is a private deemed university in Pilani, Rajasthan, India. It focuses primarily on higher education and research in engineering and sciences. BITS Pilani was one of the first s ...

in February 1999 and the workshops on Molecular Basis of Drug Discovery and on Molecular Modeling and Pharmainformatics held at National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, Mohali in 2005. He was the regional associate editor of the ''Journal of Biopharmaceutics and Biotechnology'' in 2006 and is a former member of the editorial boards of the now defunct ''Open Parasitology Journal'' of

Bentham Science Publishers Bentham Science Publishers is a company that publishes scientific, technical, and medical journals and e-books. It publishes over 120 subscription-based academic journals and around 40 open access journals. As of 2023, 66 Bentham Science journal ...

and ''

Scientific Reports ''Scientific Reports'' is a peer-reviewed open-access scientific mega journal published by Nature Portfolio, covering all areas of the natural sciences. The journal was established in 2011. The journal states that their aim is to assess solely ...

'' of

Nature Publishing Group Nature Portfolio (formerly known as Nature Publishing Group and Nature Research) is a division of the international scientific publishing company Springer Nature that publishes academic journals, magazines, online databases, and services in scien ...

. He is a reviewer for ''Molecular Biology International'', a journal of the

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Hindawi was a publisher of peer-reviewed, open access, scientific journals active in scientific, technical, and medical (STM) literature. It was founded in 1997 in Cairo, Egypt, and purchased in 2021 for $298 million by Wiley (publisher), John Wil ...

, the ''Diabetes'' journal of the

American Diabetes Association The American Diabetes Association (ADA) is a United States-based nonprofit that seeks to educate the public about diabetes and to help those affected by it through funding research to manage, cure and prevent diabetes, including type 1 diabetes ...

, ''

The FASEB Journal ''The FASEB Journal'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal related to experimental biology. The journal was established in 1987 and has been published since 2020 by Wiley on behalf of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biolo ...

'', the ''Molecular Medicine'' journal, ''

FEBS Letters ''FEBS Letters'' is a not-for-profit peer-reviewed scientific journal published on behalf of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS) by Wiley. It covers all aspects of molecular biosciences, including molecular biology and bioch ...

'', the ''Journal of Molecular Cell Biology'', ''

Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy ''Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the American Society for Microbiology. It covers antimicrobial, antiviral, antifungal, and antiparasitic agents and chemotherapy. The editor-in-chief is C ...

'', the ''

British Journal of Pharmacology The ''British Journal of Pharmacology'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed medical journal covering all aspects of experimental pharmacology. It is published for the British Pharmacological Society by Wiley-Blackwell. It was established in 1946 as the '' ...

'', '' Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology'', ''

Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy ''Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy'' is a monthly peer-reviewed medical journal covering research on all aspects of biological therapy, including gene therapy and gene transfer technologies, therapeutic peptides and proteins, vaccines and ant ...

'', the ''

Indian Journal of Medical Research The ''Indian Journal of Medical Research'' is a peer-reviewed open-access medical journal. It is published by Medknow Publications on behalf of the Indian Council of Medical Research. Since 1977, it has been published monthly with six issues per v ...

'', and ''

Experimental Parasitology ''Experimental Parasitology'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering the field of parasitology. It is published by Elsevier and was established in 1951. The main topics covered are the physiology, immunology, biochemistry, and molec ...

''. He has also served as an adviser or consultant to pharmaceutical companies such as Orchid Chemicals and Pharmaceutical Ltd., TCG Lifesciences (former Chembiotek Research International) and DSM Anti-Infectives.

Awards and honors

The

awarded him

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 ...

, one of the highest Indian science awards in 2003. The same year, he also received the

of the

, followed by the OPPI Award of the Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India in 2005. He became an elected fellow of two major Indian science academies in 2007: the National Academy of Sciences, India and the

. He received two honors in 2008: the CDRI Award of the

Central Drug Research Institute Central Drug Research Institute is a multidisciplinary research laboratory in Lucknow, India, employing scientific personnel from various areas of biomedical sciences. History The Central Drug Research Institute was one of the first laborato ...

and the J. C. Bose National Fellowship of the Department of Biotechnology. In 2011, he was awarded the inaugural Honor Lecture Award by Madras Diabetes Research Foundation. He is also a life member of the Society of Biological Chemists, India.

Biography

Legacy

Awards and honors

Selected bibliography

Book chapters

Articles

Patents

See also

Notes

References

External links

Further reading