About Samir K. BrahmachariSamir Kumar Brahmachari (born 1 January 1952) is an Indian biophysicist and Director General of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) and Secretary, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), Government of India. He is the Founder Director of Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), New Delhi and the Chief Mentor of Open Source for Drug Discovery (OSDD) Project. He is the recipient of J.C Bose Fellowship Award, DST (2012).
Education and Academic Career
Prof.Brahmachari gained a B.Sc degree in chemistry from the University of Calcutta in 1972, followed by an M.Sc (pure chemistry) in 1974. In 1978 he earned a PhD in Molecular Biophysics from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. He followed this with post-doctoral research at Paris Diderot University and a position as a visiting scientist at the Memorial University of Newfoundland.
He started his academic career as a Research Associate at the Molecular Biophysics Unit in Indian Institute of Science, and in 1981 became a Lecturer. In 1986 he became an Assistant Professor and Associate Professor in 1992. In 1997 he became a Professor and simultaneously served as a Visiting Professor at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry. On 11 August 1997 he was appointed as the Director of CSIR-Center for Biochemical Technology (CBT). As the Director of CBT he was instrumental in re-establishing it as the CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology- an institute where genomics and informatics have been seamlessly integrated. Setting up a true example of path breaking discoveries in research-limiting settings.He assumed responsibility as the Director General of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, India on 12 November 2006.
As a member of the Expert Group on Human Rights and Biotechnology Commission of United Nations, he has addressed issues of unethical exploitation of genetic resources of the Third World and has championed the concept of Rights of patients in benefit. He has held the membership of the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO) Council (2004-2011). He is currently on the Advisory Board of the X Prize in Genomics and the Scientific Advisory Board of National Center of Biomedical Ontology (NCBO), Stanford University.[citation needed] He has also been serving as the Adjunct Professor, Bioinformatics Centre, University of Pune, since 2003 and holds the Joseph Austin McCartney & Ruth McCartney Hauck named Visiting Professorship, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA, since 2012. He also holds Honorary Lifetime Professorship to the University of Delhi.He is also the academy professor of AcSIR (Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research ).
Research
Prof. Brahmachari's core expertise is in structural and computational biology.[citation needed] Prof. Brahmachari’s primary research involves elucidating the role of repetitive DNA in genome function in health and disease using a trans-disciplinary approach, integrating structural biology with genomics, molecular biology and information science. He has demonstrated the structural flexibility of DNA and the role of repetitive sequences in DNA transactions much before the discovery of repeats association with genetic basis of several neurological disorders. Using a combination of structural biology, computational genomics and population based polymorphism scanning; he and his associates have developed novel tools for genome annotation and identification of functional signature for hypothetical proteins in the genome, besides developing tools for System Biology Platform.[citation needed] Prof. Brahmachari is one of the pioneers in proposing a role for microRNAs in host-pathogen interactions. He and his coworkers identified human microRNAs targeting HIV-1 and predicted its implications.
He has more than 12 patents, 23 copyrights and over 150 research publications to his credit.
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