Biochemical and Biophysical Roles of Cell Surface Molecules

Dr. Kausik Chattopadhyay is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali (IISER Mohali). He received his PhD degree in Biochemistry from the Calcutta University in 2004, and subsequently completed his post-doctoral research with Prof. Stanley G. Nathenson at the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, USA. He joined IISER Mohali as an Assistant Professor in 2009, and became Associate Professor in 2014. His research interests focus on understanding the structure-function mechanisms of membrane-damaging, bacterial, pore-forming toxins, and their implications for the host-pathogen interaction processes and immunity. He received the prestigious National BioScience Award for Career Development for the year 2014, awarded by the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India for his work in this area.

Dr. Subhash C. Basu is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Notre Dame (UND), Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and also the president of the CDDRF (Cancer Drug Delivery Research Foundation). He received his PhD degree in Biochemistry in 1966 from the University of Michigan and was a Helen Hay Whitney Research Fellow (1966-70) under Professor Saul Roseman at the Johns Hopkins University. He joined both the teaching and research faculty at the UND in 1970 and became a Full Professor and Chairman of the Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology program in 1983. He was awarded a D.Sc. degree in Biochemistry from the University of Calcutta, India in 1976 . He received the Jacob Javits Neuroscience Research Award from NIH (1989-98), and the S. C. Roy Medal of Achievement Award from the University of Calcutta, India in 1990. He was elected to the prestigious Johns Hopkins Honor Society in 1995. He has been an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (FAAAS) since 1988. He received the “NRI-2015 Award” Trophy in the International Professional category from the respected India Times newspaper in April 2015.