Ramakrishnan Nagaraj (born 10 February 1953) is an Indian biochemist, molecular biologist and the leader of a team of scientists working in the field of

peptide Peptides are short chains of amino acids linked by peptide bonds. A polypeptide is a longer, continuous, unbranched peptide chain. Polypeptides that have a molecular mass of 10,000 Da or more are called proteins. Chains of fewer than twenty am ...

biochemistry Biochemistry, or biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology, a ...

Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology The Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (, IAST: ''Kośikīya evam āṇavik jīvavijñāna kendra'') or CCMB is an Indian fundamental biotechnology, life science research establishment located in Hyderabad that operates under the aegis ...

(CCMB). He is known for his studies on hemolytic and antibacterial properties in synthetic analogs of bacterial toxins. He is a J. C. Bose National fellow of the Department of Science and Technology at CCMB and an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, 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 Nagaraj the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 1994, for his contributions to biological sciences.

Biography

Born on 10 February 1953, Ramakrishnan Nagaraj graduated in science from the

University of Mumbai University of Mumbai is a public state university in Mumbai. It is one of the largest university systems in the world with over 549,000 students on its campuses and affiliated colleges. , the university had 711 affiliated colleges. It was est ...

and completed his master's degree at the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai before doing his doctoral research at the

Indian Institute of Science The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) is a Public university, public, Deemed university, deemed, research university for higher education and research in science, engineering, design, and management. It is located in Bengaluru, Karnataka. The ...

under the guidance of Padmanabhan Balaram, a noted biochemist and

Padma Bhushan The Padma Bhushan (IAST: ''Padma Bhūṣaṇa'', lit. 'Lotus Decoration') is the third-highest civilian award in the Republic of India, preceded by the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan and followed by the Padma Shri. Instituted on 2 Januar ...

laureate. Nagaraj joined the

(CCMB) in 1980 as a scientist where he heads a team of scientists and pursues his researches on ''structure-function correlations in peptide antibiotics''. He has done considerable work on signal peptides and peptide antibiotics and their structure-function relationships. Nagaraj is known to have suggested a protocol by which hemolytic and antibacterial properties of the ''synthetic analogs of bacterial toxins'' could be separated, an invention which is reported to be of assistance in designing antibiotic peptides. His researches have been documented in several articles;

PubMed PubMed is an openly accessible, free database which includes primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institute ...

, an online repository of medical articles, has listed 273 of them.

Awards and honors

The

awarded Nagaraj the Young Scientists Medal in 1981 and he held the Young Associateship of the Indian Academy of Sciences from 1985 to 1988. He received the Young Scientist Award of the

(CSIR) in 1988; CSIR would honor him again in 1994 with 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 ...

, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 1994. A Homi Bhabha Fellow of 1991, Nagaraj is also a recipient of the 1995 P. B. Rama Rao Award of the Society for Biological Chemists, India and an elected fellow of the Indian National Science Academy (1998), Indian Academy of Sciences (1992) and the National Academy of Sciences, India.

Selected bibliography

* * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nagaraj, Ramakrishnan Recipients of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in Biological Science 1953 births Indian biochemists Indian molecular biologists Fellows of the Indian Academy of Sciences Fellows of the National Academy of Sciences, India Fellows of the Indian National Science Academy University of Mumbai alumni IIT Bombay alumni Indian Institute of Science alumni Living people 20th-century Indian biologists Scientists from Andhra Pradesh

Biography

Awards and honors

Selected bibliography

See also

References