Bhattacharya takes charge as IISER-Tirupati Director
Prof Santanu Bhattacharya taking charge as IISER Tirupati Director on Wednesday
Tirupati: Prof Santanu Bhattacharya, Professor of Organic Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore took charge as the new Director of IISER Tirupati on Wednesday. He was appointed in place of Prof KN Ganesh by the President of India in her capacity as the visitor of the Institute.
Prof Santanu Bhattacharya, who was born in 1958 is an Indian bioorganic chemist known for his studies on molecular design of natural and synthetic lipids and membranes for gene delivery and synthesis of novel peptides for sequence-specific DNA recognition and biologically active natural products.
He is an elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences (2000), Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy (2007) and The World Academy of Sciences (2012). He received the CSIR Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar prize for Science and Technology (2003) and TWAS Chemical Sciences prize (2009), among others.
Prof Bhattacharya graduated in Chemistry (B.Sc. Honors) from the Calcutta University, obtained his Master's degree from Rajabazar Science College campus of the University of Calcutta and was awarded PhD (1988) in bioorganic chemistry with Robert A Moss of the Rutgers University (New Brunswick). He pursued post-doctoral studies with Nobel laureate Har Gobind Khorana, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working on signal transduction of membrane proteins.
He joined the Indian Institute of Science as an Assistant Professor (1991–96), became an Associate Professor (1996–2001) and has been a Professor since 2001.
He was the Chair of the Department of Organic Chemistry (2012-2015) and honorary Professor in the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for the Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR).
He served as the Director of the oldest research institute of Asia, the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS) from 2015 to 2021.
He was welcomed by the outgoing Director, Prof KN Ganesh and the Officer-on-special duty Dr C P Mohan Kumar in the presence of the faculty and staff of IISER Tirupati. Prof KN Ganesh and Dr CP Mohan Kumar mentioned that under the experienced leadership of Prof Santanu Bhattacharya, IISER Tirupati will develop and grow to reach greater heights.