M. R. S. Rao

M. R. S. Rao

Born 21 January 1948
Mysore
Residence Bangalore
Nationality Indian
Fields Biological Sciences
Institutions Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research
Alma mater Indian Institute of Science
Doctoral advisor G. Padmanabhan
Known for Chromatin Biology and Cancer Biology
Notable awards Padma Shri (2010) and Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology(1988)

Manchanahalli Rangaswamy Satyanarayana Rao (Kannada: ಮಂಚನಹಳ್ಳಿ ರಂಗಸ್ವಾಮಿ ಸತ್ಯನಾರಾಯಣ ರಾವ್, Hindi: मंचानाहल्ली रंगास्वामी सत्यानारयाना राव), known by the abbreviation M. R. S. Rao, is an Indian scientist, born on 21 January 1948 at Mysore, India. He has been awarded Padma Shri[1] [2] in Science and Engineering category (year 2010) by the Government of India. He is the President[3] of Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bangalore, India.

Contents

Education and personal life

Prof. Rao obtained his bachelors degree (B.Sc.) in 1966 and Masters degree (M.Sc.) in 1968 from Bangalore University. He received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore in 1973. Govindarajan Padmanabhan (Former Director, IISc) was his doctoral advisor at Department of Biochemistry. He did his postdoctoral research at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA, (1974–76) and was as assistant professor at the same institution. He decided to come back to India and joined Department of Biochemistry, Indian Institute of Science (IISc).

At present, he is President[4] of Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bangalore and actively running Chromatin Biology[5] laboratory. He has been credited as first scientist to initiate Chromatin Biology research in India. In more than 30 years of active research career, his lab at IISc and JNCASR, has mentored[6] [7] more than 35 Ph.D. students, dozens of Postdoctoral fellows and hundreds of research trainees.

Rao is married to Padma S. Rao and the couple has 2 sons, M.S. Sharat and M.S. Rohan, both engineers by profession. The happy family lives in Bangalore.

Professional life

After having his postdoctoral research and short stint of assistant professorship at Baylor College of Medicine, USA, he returned to India in 1978 and joined the Department of Biochemistry, IISc as Assistant Professor. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1987 and Professor in 1991. He was the Chairman of Centre for Genetic Engineering, IISc between 1990-93. For several occasions, he served as visiting professor to Baylor College of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and University of California at San Diego, USA.

In 2003, he accepted the chair of President of Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Jakkur, Bangalore. He was the Chairperson of Department of Biochemistry, IISc (1998–2003) and Molecular Biology and Genetics Unit (MBGU, JNCASR) between 2005-09. He has served as President of Society of Biological Chemists (India) for two terms between 2000-04. M.R.S. Rao has been associated as a governing body member or as a scientific advisor to several research institutes in India. He is the Ex-Chairman of Board of Governors of Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.

He has served as chairperson or expert member of several scientific councils such as Department of Science and Technology (India), Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR); Science academies such as Indian Academy of Sciences (IAS), National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI), Indian National Science Academy (INSA), Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) and science policy making committees in Government of India organizations, Institutions and Universities in India. He is also active member of Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) activities. He is the chairperson[8] of Task Force on Human Genetics & Genome Analysis of Department of Biotechnology, (DBT) India. He is member[9] of Governing body of Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB), Bangalore. He is also serving as member[10] of academic council of Poornaprajna Institute of Scientific Research, Bangalore.

Rao has been apponited as a member[11] in the newly constituted National Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) which will support innovation, research and development in various sciences in India.

He is on the editorial board of several high repute peer reviewed journals and recently has joined as senior member on the editorial board of American Journal of Cancer Research (AJCR)[12].

Publications

Rao is a prolific scientific researcher and author of hundreds of peer reviewed international journal articles. Several research articles have been cited extensively throughout the world scientific community. Most of his research work has been focused on Chromatin biology and Cancer biology.

Rao has an h-index of above 26 (as per June 2011) and it's still in logarithmic phase and heading up continuously. One of his publication[13] over colon cancer, published in Cell (journal) has extensive citations of more than 2000 so far.

Awards and recognitions

Rao has received several medals, awards and fellowships both in India and overseas. He has been awarded the Padma Shri award (year 2010) by Government of India for his immense contribution in Science and Engineering to the country. He has received coveted Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology[14] (Year 1988) from Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Centenary Award[15] from Indian Council of Medical Research (2005), Jawaharlal Nehru Birth Centenary Lecture award of Indian National Science Academy (INSA), FICCI Award, J. C. Bose Medal of INSA, Rockefeller Foundation Biotechnology Fellowship, Om Prakash Bhasin Award, Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) Medal Lecture Award 2008, Ranbaxy Science Foundation Award for Basic Medical Sciences and Sir M. Visveswaraiah Senior Scientist State award by Government of Karnataka. He has been awarded with Prof. N. Appaji Rao Best Mentor Award -2011[16], an award instituted by Indian Institute of Science Alumni Association (IIScAA), Bangalore.

He is fellow of Indian Academy of Sciences (IAS), Bangalore; Indian National Science Academy (INSA), Delhi; National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI), Allahabad; National Academy of Medical Sciences (FAMS), India; Third World Academy of Science (TWAS), Triesty, Italy; American Society for Cell Biology, American Society for Microbiology, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Human Genome Organization award.

Preceded by
C.N.R.Rao and Prof. V. Krishnan		 President, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research
2003  – till date		 Succeeded by
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References

  1. ^ "Padma awardees list at www.india.gov.in". http://india.gov.in/myindia/celebration2.php. 
  2. ^ "Padma awardees information at Public Bureau Information (PIB) web portal, Government of India". http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=57307. 
  3. ^ "Message from President, JNCASR". http://www.jncasr.ac.in/pmessage.php. 
  4. ^ "Academic Advisory Council, JNCASR". http://www.jncasr.ac.in/main_page.php/Academic-Advisory-Committee/142/1/1/. 
  5. ^ "Chromatin Biology Laboratory of Prof. M.R.S. Rao". http://www.jncasr.ac.in/pmessage.php. 
  6. ^ "Alumni information of Chromatin Biology Lab, IISc/JNCASR". http://www.jncasr.ac.in/mrsrao/index.php?menu_id=10&user_id=21&page_id=371. 
  7. ^ "Present lab members of Chromatin Biology Lab, JNCASR". http://www.jncasr.ac.in/mrsrao/index.php?menu_id=9&user_id=21&page_id=370. 
  8. ^ "Chairperson of Task Force on Human Genetics & Genome Analysis, DBT- India". http://dbtindia.nic.in/uniquepage.asp?id_pk=180. 
  9. ^ "Governing body member of Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB)". http://www.ibab.ac.in/abt_governing_body.htm. 
  10. ^ "Academic Council Member of Poornaprajna Institute of Scientific Research". http://www.ppisr.res.in/council.html. 
  11. ^ "The Gazette of India notification dated June 11, 2010". http://www.dst.gov.in/scientific-programme/SERB_BOARD_NOTIFICATION-MEMBER.pdf. 
  12. ^ "Senior Editorial Board Member of American Journal of Cancer Research, ISSN # 2156-6976". http://www.ajcr.us/EditorialBoard.html. 
  13. ^ "The human mutator gene homolog MSH2 and its association with hereditary nonpolyposis colon cancer, Cell, 1993; Vol 75(5):1027-1038". http://www.cell.com/abstract/0092-8674(93)90546-3. 
  14. ^ "Handbook of Shanti Swarup Bhatanagar Prize winners (1958-1998)". http://www.scribd.com/doc/13729624/Bhatnagar-Prize-Winner. 
  15. ^ "Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Centenary Award (Year 2004-2005) of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)". http://www.icmr.nic.in/award/award2005.pdf. 
  16. ^ "Prof. N. Appaji Rao Best Mentor Award (Year 2011) of Indian Institute of Science Alumni Association (IIScAA)". http://www.jncasr.ac.in/newsview.php?id=135. 

Toppur Seethapathy Sadasivan (1960) • M.S. Swaminathan (1961) • B.K.Bachhawat (1962) • Jagannath Ganguly (1963} • D.S. Athwal (1964) • Chirayathumadom Venkatachalier Subramanian (1965) • Hari Krishan Jain & Neelamraju Ganga Prasada Rao (1966) • Tathamangam Ananthanarayanan Venkitasubramanian (1968) • Madhu Sudan Kanungo & Narayana Balakrishnan Nair (1971) • Birendra Bijoy Biswas&Satish Chandra Maheshwari (1972) • Bhyravabhotla Radhakrishna Murty (1973) • J. Barnabas (1974) • Obaid Siddiqi (1975) • Guru Prakash Gutta (1976) • T.C.A. Kumar (1977) • A.N. Bhaduri (1979) • Asis Datta & Jamuna Sharan Singh (1980) • Prafullachandra Vishnu Sane (1981) • Sunil Kumar Podder (1982) • Govindarajan Padmanabhan (1983) • Thavamani Jegajothivel Pandian (1984) • Chhitar Mal Gupta (1985) • M. Gadgil (1986) • B. Bhattacharyya (1988) • M.R.S. Rao (1988) • Subhash Chandra Lakhotia (1989) • Samir K. Brahmachari (1990) • Kuppamuthu Dharmalingam (1992) • Raghavendra Gadagkar (1993) • A. Bhattacharya (1994) • Seyed Ehtesham Hasnain & Kallappa Muniyappa (1995) • Ghanshyam Swarup (1996) • Jayaraman Gowrishankar (1997) • Krishnaswami VijayRaghavan (1998) • Dinakar Mashnu Salunke (2000) • Raghavan Varadarajan & Amitabha Chattopadhyay (2002) • Satyajit Mayor (2003) • Gopal Chandra Kundu & Ramesh Venkata Sonti (2004) • Tapas K. Kundu & Shekhar C. Mande (2005) • Vinod Bhakuni & Rajesh Sudhir Gokhale (2006) • Upinder Singh Bhalla & Narayanaswamy Srinivasan (2007) • Gajendra Pal Singh Raghava & L.S. Shashidhara (2008) • Amitabh Joshi & Bhaskar Saha (2009) • Sanjeev Galande & Shubha Tole (2010) Amit Prakash Sharma & Rajan Sankaranarayanan (2011)
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