Joyoti Basu (born 17 December 1957) is an Indian biochemist, cell biologist and a senior professor at the

Bose Institute Bose Institute (or Basu Bigyan Mandir) is a premier public research institute of India for biological sciences and also one of its oldest. The Bose Institute Kolkata is a Tier 1 Natural Science Research Institute in India, sharing the podium wit ...

. Known for her studies on the membrane structure of

red blood cells Red blood cells (RBCs), referred to as erythrocytes (, with -''cyte'' translated as 'cell' in modern usage) in academia and medical publishing, also known as red cells, erythroid cells, and rarely haematids, are the most common type of blood cel ...

, Basu is an elected fellow of all three major Indian science academies, namely 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

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 ...

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 ...

, as well as the Indian Society for Chemical Biology. 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 her 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 her contributions to biosciences in 2002.

Biography

Parul Chakrabarti - Kolkata 2009-11-07 2693

Born on 17 December 1957 in 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 ...

, Joyoti Basu did her undergraduate studies at the

Presidency College, Kolkata Presidency University, formerly Presidency College, is a public state university located in College Street, Kolkata. Established in 1817 as the ''Hindoo College'', it was later renamed ''Presidency College'' in 1855 and functioned as a leadi ...

and after completing the BSc honors in chemistry, she obtained an MSc 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 ...

. Her doctoral research was at the

, Kolkata under the guidance of Parul Chakrabarti, which earned her a PhD from Calcutta University. She did her post-doctoral work at the laboratory of Jean-Marie Ghuysen at the

University of Liège The University of Liège (), or ULiège, is a major public university of the French Community of Belgium founded in 1817 and based in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium. Its official language is French (language), French. History The university was foun ...

working on

mycobacterial ''Mycobacterium'' is a genus of over 190 species in the phylum Actinomycetota, assigned its own family, Mycobacteriaceae. This genus includes pathogens known to cause serious diseases in mammals, including tuberculosis ('' M. tuberculosis'') an ...

cell division and mycobacterial

peptidoglycan Peptidoglycan or murein is a unique large macromolecule, a polysaccharide, consisting of sugars and amino acids that forms a mesh-like layer (sacculus) that surrounds the bacterial cytoplasmic membrane. The sugar component consists of alternating ...

-biosynthesizing enzymes. She joined Bose Institute in 1991 as a faculty member at the department of Chemistry and retired in June, 2018. Basu resides along Madhab Chatterjee Street 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 ...

Controversy

Basu's alleged scientific misconduct has been noted widely and has even been covered in media. She is widely alleged to have duplicated images leading to retraction of two papers, correction of another two, and, many alleged instances of misconduct listed on Pubpeer. Basu has retracted a few of her papers. This includes an article published in

The Journal of Immunology The ''Journal of Immunology'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed medical journal that publishes basic and clinical studies in all aspects of immunology. Established in 1916, it changed its name to ''Journal of Immunology, Virus Research and Experimental C ...

Legacy

Basu's research is focused on the cellular and molecular biology of

mycobacteria ''Mycobacterium'' is a genus of over 190 species in the phylum Actinomycetota, assigned its own family, Mycobacteriaceae. This genus includes pathogens known to cause serious diseases in mammals, including tuberculosis ('' M. tuberculosis'') a ...

. During the initial stages of her career, she worked on the membrane structure of red blood cells and her research is reported to have assisted in widening the understanding of

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 ...

of nucleated mammalian cells and the physiology of the red cell that lacked a cell nucleus. Her association with her mentor, Parul Chakrabarti, during her doctoral research days, precipitated the studies of the

biosynthetic Biosynthesis, i.e., chemical synthesis occurring in biological contexts, is a term most often referring to multi-step, enzyme- catalyzed processes where chemical substances absorbed as nutrients (or previously converted through biosynthesis) serve ...

pathways of

fatty acids In chemistry, in particular in biochemistry, a fatty acid is a carboxylic acid with an aliphatic chain, which is either saturated or unsaturated. Most naturally occurring fatty acids have an unbranched chain of an even number of carbon atoms, ...

in relation to cell wall building and the functions of

penicillin-binding proteins Penicillin-binding proteins (PBPs) are a group of proteins that are characterized by their affinity for and binding of penicillin. They are a normal constituent of many bacteria; the name just reflects the way by which the protein was discov ...

. She is known to be the first scientist to propose that the removal of the ''aged or oxidatively stressed red blood cells'' from the

circulatory system In vertebrates, the circulatory system is a system of organs that includes the heart, blood vessels, and blood which is circulated throughout the body. It includes the cardiovascular system, or vascular system, that consists of the heart ...

causes

cellular death Cell death is the event of a biological cell ceasing to carry out its functions. This may be the result of the natural process of old cells dying and being replaced by new ones, as in programmed cell death, or may result from factors such as di ...

. Later she moved on to the biological study of

Mycobacterium tuberculosis ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (M. tb), also known as Koch's bacillus, 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'' ha ...

, a pathogenic bacteria causing

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

, with regard to its host-pathogen interaction and her studies revealed the mechanisms of

macrophage Macrophages (; abbreviated MPhi, φ, MΦ or MP) are a type of white blood cell of the innate immune system that engulf and digest pathogens, such as cancer cells, microbes, cellular debris and foreign substances, which do not have proteins that ...

as well as the relationship between host

cell signaling In biology, cell signaling (cell signalling in British English) is the Biological process, process by which a Cell (biology), cell interacts with itself, other cells, and the environment. Cell signaling is a fundamental property of all Cell (biol ...

and innate

immune response An immune response is a physiological reaction which occurs within an organism in the context of inflammation for the purpose of defending against exogenous factors. These include a wide variety of different toxins, viruses, intra- and extracellula ...

. In 2007, the team led by Basu and her college mate from the Presidency College, Manikuntala Kundu, were successful in identifying a protein in Mycobacterium tuberculosis which caused weakening of the immune system of the host. They found that the protein, named Early Secreted Antigen 6, which bound themselves on

Toll-like receptor 2 Toll-like receptor 2 also known as TLR2 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''TLR2'' gene. TLR2 has also been designated as CD282 (cluster of differentiation 282). TLR2 is one of the toll-like receptors and plays a role in the immune sy ...

of the host, hindered the production of

cytokines Cytokines () are a broad and loose category of small proteins (~5–25 kDa) important in cell signaling. Cytokines are produced by a broad range of cells, including immune cells like macrophages, B cell, B lymphocytes, T cell, T lymphocytes ...

, a type of protein which helped the immune system to fight the tuberculosis bacteria. The discovery also has reported importance in the

therapeutics A therapy or medical treatment is the attempted remediation of a health problem, usually following a medical diagnosis. Both words, ''treatment'' and ''therapy'', are often abbreviated tx, Tx, or Tx. As a rule, each therapy has indications an ...

of diseases like

rheumatoid arthritis Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a long-term autoimmune disorder that primarily affects synovial joint, joints. It typically results in warm, swollen, and painful joints. Pain and stiffness often worsen following rest. Most commonly, the wrist and h ...

. The achievement was later published as an article, ''Direct extracellular interaction between the early secreted antigen ESAT-6 of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and TLR2 inhibits TLR signaling in macrophages'' in

Nature Immunology ''Nature Immunology'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering immunology. It was established in 2000, as an expansion of the ''Nature'' family of journals. The editor-in-chief is Jamie D. K. Wilson. According to the ''Journal Cita ...

journal in 2007. Her 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 77 of them. Besides, she has mentored several research scholars in their doctoral studies. Basu is a member of the executive committee of the Indian Society of Cell Biology and is a former Treasurer of the Society. She is credited with contributing to the establishment of a program on ''Systems Biology'' at the Bose Institute. She is also a former associate editor of the

Journal of Immunology The ''Journal of Immunology'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed medical journal that publishes basic and clinical studies in all aspects of immunology. Established in 1916, it changed its name to ''Journal of Immunology, Virus Research and Experimental C ...

and is an Academic Editor of PLoS One.

Awards and honors

Basu received the Young Scientist Medal of the

in 1989. The

of the Government of India awarded her the

, one of the highest Indian science awards in 2002. The

elected her as a fellow the same year. She received the elected fellowships of the

and the Indian National Academy of Sciences in 2006 and 2009 respectively. She is a recipient of the J.C. Bose National Fellowship in 2017.

Selected bibliography

* * *

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Basu, Joyoti N-BIOS Prize recipients Indian women academics Fellows of the National Academy of Sciences, India 1957 births Living people Fellows of the Indian Academy of Sciences Fellows of the Indian National Science Academy Women scientists from West Bengal Indian biochemists University of Calcutta alumni University of Liège alumni Indian cell biologists Scientists from Kolkata 20th-century Indian biologists 20th-century Indian women scientists