Governing Board
President- Professor V. S. Chauhan
Dr. Chauhan did his B.SC (Hons), M.Sc. and Ph.D in chemistry at Delhi University. In 1974 he was awarded a Rhodes scholarship to study at Oxford, where he worked for a D.Phil in Chemistry. After a short post-doctoral stint at University of Georgia, USA he returned to India, and taught at St. Stephen’s College, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and Delhi University (1981-1988). In 1988, he joined the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), from its inception, as the group leader for Malaria Research. He was the Director of ICGEB, New Delhi from 1998 to 2014. He is currently a visiting scientist at ICGEB, New Delhi.
His major research interests and contributions are in the fields of Malaria vaccine and drug development, and in design and synthesis of peptides of biological importance. His group has characterized vaccine target antigens and developed methods to produce them by recombinant technology. After preclinical development, a blood stage, combination vaccine, JAIVAC-1, has been taken to Phase I clinical trials; a recombinant vaccine that has been entirely developed and produced for clinical trials in India. In Malaria drug development his group has developed high through put assays for screening compounds from material and synthetic sources. In the area of peptides, the main focus is on design of conformationally defined peptides scaffolds that can be useful in immunogenic designs for HIV, novel antibiotics, self organizing systems and drug delivery platforms for diseases like cancer.
He is presently the Secretary for the Rhodes Scholarship (UK), the Inlaks Scholarships and the Felix Scholarships, given to Indian students to study at Oxford University (UK) and other major institutions worldwide.
Secretary - Professor Chetan Chitnis
Dr. Chitnis received his Ph.D. in biophysics from the University of California-Berkeley in 1990. He completed postdoctoral training in the Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and returned to India in 1995 to establish an independent research group at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), New Delhi. He received the 1995 ICAAC Young Investigator Award from the American Society of Microbiology, the 2000 M. O. T. Iyengar Award for Research in Malaria from the Indian Council of Medical Research, the 2004 Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar Prize in Medical Sciences from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and the 2010 Infosys Science Prize from the Infosys Science Foundation. He has been an International Research Scholar of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, USA and Senior Research Fellow of The Wellcome Trust, UK.
He is currently heading malaria parasite biology and vaccines unit at Institut Pasteur and a visiting scientist at the Malaria Group at ICGEB, New Delhi,India.His work is focused on receptor-ligand interactions involved in erythrocyte invasion by malaria parasites. He uses insights gained from these basic studies to develop vaccines for malaria.
Dr. Dinakar M Salunke
Dr. Dinakar M. Salunke has a PhD in Molecular Biophysics (1983) from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India and post-doctoral training at Brandeis University, Waltham, USA.
Dr. Salunke currently is the Director of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, New Delhi. Earlier, he was the Founder Executive Director of the Regional Centre for Biotechnology (2009-2015) established jointly by Govt of India and UNESCO. Dr Salunke joined the National Institute of Immunology (NII) in 1988 where he worked for about 25 years and established a vibrant group that works at the interface of multiple disciplines. His primary research interests are: Structural Biology of Immune Recognition, Molecular Mimicry and Allergy, where he has published more than 100 papers. He has made notable contributions in understanding the dichotomy of antibody specificity and molecular mimicry in the humoral immune response. His work provides fundamental insights into understanding body's defense against infections and indicates possible ways of design and development of new generation vaccines.
He has been actively involved in the leadership positions at National as well as International level in the field of Biotechnology. Dr. Salunke is an Independent Director on the Board of Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC). He was the Vice-President for International Affairs (2013-2015) of the Indian National Science Academy and is a Fellow of all the Science Academies of India and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). Dr. Salunke has won many awards including the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar, Ranbaxy and National Bioscience Awards, a JC Bose National Fellowship and the GN Ramachandran Gold Medal for Excellence in Biological Sciences & Technology, among others.
Dr. B. Ravindran
Dr. B Ravindran received his Microbiology training from JIPMER Pondicherry, Delhi University, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, UK and University of Connecticut Health Centre, USA. He has worked as a scientist with Indian Council of Medical Research for more than two decades and currently heads the Institute of Life Sciences, Bhubaneswar. He is an active member of a large global consortium of investigators from Universities and Research institutions in UK, USA, Germany, France, Netherlands, Malaysia and Indonesia for nearly a decade working on Immuno-biology of Metazoan pathogens. He has been a visiting Professor/Visiting Scientist at University Edinburgh, University of Bonn, Pasteur Institute at Lille during the last 10 years. He also serves as a member of Board of Governors and in Scientific Advisory Committees of several Research institutions. He is also on reviewer panel for several scientific journals and funding agencies in India and abroad.
His scientific interests include Immunology of Infectious Diseases such as Malaria, Filariasis and Sepsis; regulation of inflammation and macrophage biology in infectious diseases and evolution of immune system in mammals. His group has published about 90 scientific papers in International journals.
Dr. T.S. Rao
Dr. T.S. Rao at present is working as Adviser in the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science & Technology, Govt. of India. He is coordinating the programmes related to Medical Biotechnology, Human Genetics & Genome Analysis, National Bioethics Committee, Vaccines Research and Development since 1988-89 this includes the Jai Vigyan Mission programme on S&T for new and improved vaccines, Vaccine Grand Challenge Programme, glue grant, rapid grant for young investigators and also the two human vaccine production units established under Technology Mission on Immunization, namely Bharat Immunologicals and Biologicals Corporation Limited and Indian Vaccines Corporation Limited, Gurgaon. In addition, he has established the National Brain Research Centre, Manesar; Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, Faridabad, Institute for Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine, Bangalore, as autonomous institutions of Department of Biotechnology, including its. niches centres and extramural units
Before joining Department of Biotechnology in 1988, Dr. Rao worked at National Institute of Communicable Diseases, M/o Health & FW, Govt. of India, in the area of development of Malaria vaccine by using molecular biology methods and developed monoclonal antibodies for blood stages of P.falciparum. Dr. Rao has about 18 scientific publications to his credit in National and International peer reviewed journals. He is also one of the co-author’s of a comprehensive book entitled “An introduction to Biotechnology principals, techniques applications and industrial opportunities” published in English and Hindi by Kitab Mahal in 1992.