Tag: Dr. Sutharsan Govindarajan

Education

SRMAP faculty received DBT/Wellcome Trust Grant of 1.24 crores

Dec 22, 2020 by Neel Achary 0 Comments #Dr. Sutharsan Govindarajan, #SRM University-AP

Dr. Sutharsan Govindarajan, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology, SRM University-AP has been granted the Early Career Fellowship by DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance. An award of Rs. 1.24 crores has been provided to Dr Sutharsan for 60 months for the comprehensive study on “Jumbophages as ancient models for cell organization.”

DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance (India Alliance) is an independent, dynamic public charity that funds research in health and biomedical sciences in India. India Alliance is funded by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India and the Wellcome Trust, United Kingdom.

DBT/Wellcome Trust award is a very prestigious award that is given to faculty members of the premier and highly established institutions such as IISc, Bangalore, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). Though SRM University-AP is a nascent university, Dr Sutharsan Govindarajan’s transformative ideas and outstanding publications in the world’s most prestigious journals such as Nature, Nature Microbiology, Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) have brought him this recognition. Prof D Narayana Rao, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, SRM University-AP congratulated Dr Sutharsan in a brief ceremony on Dec 22, 2020. Professors of SRMAP, Prof Ranjit Thapa, Dr Vinod Kumar, Dr Mahesh Ravva and others attended the ceremony.

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SRM AP faculty receives the prestigious grant by DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance

Aug 3, 2020 by Gouri Achary 0 Comments #‘Early Career Fellowship’ grant, #Assistant Professor, #Department of Biology, #Dr. Sutharsan Govindarajan, #SRM University-AP

Dr. Sutharsan Govindarajan, Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, SRM University-AP has been awarded the prestigious ‘Early Career Fellowship’ grant by DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance, funded by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and the Wellcome Trust, United Kingdom. The fellowship supports outstanding young scientists to pursue high-quality research in the field of biomedical science and establish themselves as independent researchers in India. Dr. Sutharsan sought a total research grant of 1.1 crore for a period of 5 years as a DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance Early career fellow. The India Alliance grants are highly competitive and are based on the profile of the applicant and the novelty and the importance of the proposed research. Nationwide only less than 10 Early Career grants are awarded every year. Dr Sutharsan is a highly accomplished scientist, having published research articles in highly reputed journals, including the most prestigious Nature and Nature Microbiology. Through this fellowship, Dr. Sutharsan will establish an independent research laboratory at SRM University – AP with the support of Prof. Jayaseelan, Head, Department of Biology, and the fellowship supervisor of the project.

In this project, Dr. Sutharsan plans to venture and explore the biology of a novel class of bacteriophages called Jumbo-phages. “Bacteriophages, which are the most abundant biological entities on the planet, are viruses that infect bacteria but do not harm humans. Jumbo-phages, as the name suggests, are giant viruses with large genome. A sneak peek into their lifestyle during my postdoctoral research led me,  to realize that these phages build fascinating complex structures inside the bacteria they infect. Such complex structures are well known to be formed in eukaryotic cells like human cells but was not thought to be made by bacteriophages, which have evolved billions of years before eukaryotes. Thus, studying how such cellular structures are formed by jumbo-phages provides a unique opportunity to investigate the origin of complex life” informs Dr. Sutharsan. He also explains that the proposed research has several biotechnological applications such as phage therapy and synthetic biology.

Dr. Sutharsan further shares, “This is one the best fellowships a young scientist can obtain in India. It is an honour, prestige and a recognition for the scientist as well as to the University. In the next 5 years, I anticipate major fundamental discoveries in the field of bacteriophage biology and evolution”.