Govindarajan Padmanaban

Govindarajan Padmanaban
Born	20 March 1938 (age 77) Madras, India
Residence	India
Nationality	Indian
Fields	Biochemistry
Institutions	Indian Institute of Science St Mary's Hospital Medical School University of Chicago
Alma mater	Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru Indian Agricultural Research Institute,New Delhi Presidency College, Chennai
Doctoral advisor	P. S. Sarma
Notable awards	Padma Bhushan (2003) Padma Shri (1991) Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize (1983)

Govindarajan Padmanaban (born 20 March 1938, Madras) is an Indian biochemist and biotechnologist. He was the former director of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), and presently serves as honorary professor in the department of biochemistry at IISc.

Contents

• 1 Early life and education
• 2 Research
• 3 Awards
• 4 References
• 5 External links

Early life and education

Padmanaban was brought up in a family of engineers. His belongs to Tanjore district of Tamil Nadu but had settled in Bangalore. After completing his schooling in Bangalore, he joined an Engineering College. However, he found engineering uninteresting, and he joined the Presidency College in Madras to complete a bachelor's degree in chemistry. He completed his masters in Soil Chemistry at Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi and Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the Indian Institute of science IISc, Bangalore in 1966.^[1]

Research

In the early years of his research, he primarily worked in the transcriptional regulation of Eukaryotic genes in the liver. He was interested in elucidating the multifaceted role of heme in cellular processes. His group discovered the heme-biosynthetic pathway in the malarial parasite and showed it to be a drug target. He has also been interested in the area of vaccine development. His team was successful in showing the antimalarial property of Curcumin and its efficacy in combination therapy in 2004.^[2]

Awards

• Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology (1983)
• Padma Shri (1991)
• Padma Bhushan (2003)

References

1. Diamond, Bruce (2003). "Profile: Govindarajan Padmanaban". Nature Medicine 9 (8): 985. doi:10.1038/nm0803-985. PMID 12894150.
2. Reddy, Raju C.; Vatsala, Palakkodu G.; Keshamouni, Venkateshwar G.; Padmanaban, Govindarajan; Rangarajan, Pundi N. (2005). "Curcumin for malaria therapy". Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications 326 (2): 472–4. doi:10.1016/j.bbrc.2004.11.051. PMID 15582601.

• Siddharthan, Rahul (2007). "The case of the Padmanaban Committee". Current Science 93 (3): 281–2.
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