Santanu Bhattacharya (born 1958) is an Indian chemical biologist and former professor at the Indian Institute of Science. At, present he is the Director of the

Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Tirupati Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Tirupati commonly referred as IISER Tirupati, is an autonomous public university in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India. It has been established by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, i ...

(IISER-Tirupati). He is known for his studies of unnatural

amino acids Amino acids are organic compounds that contain both amino and carboxylic acid functional groups. Although hundreds of amino acids exist in nature, by far the most important are the alpha-amino acids, which comprise proteins. Only 22 alpha am ...

, oligopeptides, designed and natural lipids and biologically active natural products and is an elected fellow of the Indian National Science Academy The World Academy of Sciences and the Indian Academy of Sciences The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, 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, in 2003, for his contributions to chemical sciences. 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 (2002) and the TWAS Prize (2010).

Biography

Santanu Bhattacharya, born on 23 April 1958 in Calcutta (now called Kolkata) in the Indian state of West Bengal, graduated in Chemistry (B.Sc. Honors) from the Calcutta University and continued at the university to complete his master's degree from Rajabazar Science College campus of University of Calcutta. Moving to the US, he enrolled for his doctoral studies on bioorganic chemistry at the laboratory of Professor Robert A. Moss of the Rutgers University – New Brunswick and after securing a PhD in 1988, he had a post-doctoral stint with Professor Har Gobind Khorana, a

Nobel laureate The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make out ...

at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the theme of his studies being

signal transduction Signal transduction is the process by which a chemical or physical signal is transmitted through a cell as a series of molecular events, most commonly protein phosphorylation catalyzed by protein kinases, which ultimately results in a cellula ...

membrane proteins Membrane proteins are common proteins that are part of, or interact with, biological membranes. Membrane proteins fall into several broad categories depending on their location. Integral membrane proteins are a permanent part of a cell membrane ...

. On his return to India, he joined the Indian Institute of Science where he served as an assistant professor (1991–96), associate professor (1996–2001) and a professor (since 2001); he continued at IISc as the chair of the department of organic chemistry till 2023. He also serves as an honorary professor of Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research at its Chemical Biology unit. He also served as the Director of the oldest research institute of Asia, the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS). In 2023, Professor Bhattacharya has been appointed the Director of the

(IISER-Tirupati).

Legacy

Focusing his researches on the interfaces of chemistry and biology, Bhattacharya is reported to have made notable contributions in the design and synthesis of unnatural amino acids, cyclic peptides, DNA binding small molecules, and other biologically active natural products. He has carried out several projects which include lipid molecular design and biophysics, peptide designs, structural studies of micelles, DNA binding anti-cancer agents, and design and synthesis of nanomaterials. He has published his researches by way of several peer-reviewed articles; the online repository of the Indian Academy of Sciences has listed 117 of them. On the academic administration front, he established a laboratory for bio-organic and supramolecular studies at Indian Institute of Science. He has supervised the post-graduate, doctoral and post-doctoral studies of several scholars and has sat in the editorial boards of journals such as Bioconjugate Chemistry and Langmuir of American Chemical Society, and the Journal of Materials Nanoscience.

Awards and honors

Bhattacharya received the B. M. Birla Science Award in 1997 Swarnajayanti Fellowship Award (DST) in 1998, the Material Research Society of India Medal in 1999 and the Chemical Research Society of India Bronze Medal in 2000. The Department of Biotechnology awarded him with the

in 2002 and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research awarded him in 2003 with the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, one of the highest Indian science awards. He received the

TWAS Prize This is a list of recipients of the TWAS Prize, awarded annually by The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). Summary Agricultural Sciences Biology Chemistry Earth Sciences Engineering Sciences Mathematics Medical Sc ...

in 2010 the Ranbaxy Research Award in 2013 and SASTRA-CNR Rao Award in 2017. P. U. Bhagyatara National Award (2004), CDRI Award of the Central Drug Research Institute (2004) and the G. D. Birla Award (2007) are some of the other notable awards he has received. Holder of J. C. Bose National Fellowship in 2008 and Swarna Jayanti Fellowship of the

Department of Science and Technology Department of Science and Technology may refer to: *Department of Science and Technology (Australia), an Australian Government department between November 1980 and December 1984 * Department of Science and Technology (India) * Department of Science ...

during 1998–2003, he was elected as a fellow by the Indian Academy of Sciences in 2000 and he became an elected fellow of the Indian National Science Academy in 2007 and The World Academy of Sciences in 2012. He has also delivered several award orations including the D. Ranganathan Memorial Lecture of the Chemical Research Society of India (2007) and the Nitya Anand Endowment Lecture of the Indian National Science Academy (2007).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bhattacharya, Santanu Recipients of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in Chemical Science 1958 births Indian scientific authors Fellows of the Indian Academy of Sciences Fellows of the Indian National Science Academy Living people Scientists from West Bengal Indian organic chemists N-BIOS Prize recipients TWAS fellows University of Calcutta alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Rutgers University alumni Academic staff of the Indian Institute of Science TWAS laureates

Biography

Legacy

Awards and honors

See also

References