From Thermoelectrics to Therapeutics : A Win For Sustainability in the SSB PRIZE 2021

From Thermoelectrics to Therapeutics: A win for Sustainability in the SSB Prize 2021

Johar P., Gupta D.

INTRODUCTION

Prizes and Research Grants have a major and foundational role of not only incentivizing and highlighting fantastic achievements and work done by people but also in their synergistic development. One such award is the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar (SSB) Award. It is one of the most lauded prizes that a scientific academician can receive in India. It’s scope spans over a plethora of subjects ranging from biological and medical sciences to planetary and physical sciences. The award is named after Padma Bhushan Sir Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar who was the Founder-Director of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). The sole impetus of this award is to recognize Indian Nationals from the field of science and technology for their path-breaking research work that contributes to these myriad disciplines and help develop more efficient, economically viable and sustainable technologies .

While the selection criteria limits the prize nominations to the citizens of India, it does not exclude Overseas Citizens of India (OCI’s) and Persons of Indian Origin (PIO’s) working in India. While the purpose behind awarding this prize is to recognize a person who has made conspicuously important and outstanding contributions in fundamental or applied fields, it foundationally focuses on the work carried out by the nominee in the past 5 years, most of which should be carried out in India and is groundbreaking. As a part of the reward a whopping half a million rupees are also conferred upon the winning candidate(s). While the candidates can be recommended by the Directors and Presidents of various Organizations like DRDO and BARC etc. Scientists working at various Universities also stand a chance of winning this, if recommended by their University Faculty, through their Institutional heads and Directors.

The advisory committees, composed of various esteemed scientists and other important members then finalize the winners for this prize. The list of winners from various academic disciplines is then made public, every year, at the end of September.

This year’s SSB prize winners include:

Biological Sciences

Dr Amit Singh and Dr Arun Kumar Shukla

Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean and Planetary Sciences

Dr Binoy Kumar Saikia

Engineering Sciences

Dr Debdeep Mukhopadhyay

Mathematical Sciences

Dr Anish Ghosh and Dr Saket Saurabh

Medical Sciences

Dr Jeemon Panniyammakal and Dr Rohit Srivastava

Physical Sciences

Dr Kanak Saha

Chemical Sciences

Dr Kanishka Biswas and Dr T Govindaraju

This year’s SSB prize in Chemical Sciences was jointly awarded to Professor Kanishka Biswas and Professor T Govindaraju of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bengaluru.

Dr Kanishka Biswas

Dr Kanishka Biswas is currently serving as Associate Professor at JNCASR, Bangalore. He started his academic career with a Bachelors of Science in Chemistry (Honours) from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, West Bengal. He then continued his academic journey with the Integrated PhD programme, under Prof. C. N. R. Rao (Bharat Ratna), at IISc, Bangalore in Solid State and Structural Chemistry. At IISc, his work majorly consisted of soft chemical synthesis, characterization, kinetic and spectroscopic studies of nanostructures of various oxides, nitrides and chalcogenides. With his interests lying in structural and solid state chemistry, he was selected as a Post-Doctoral Fellow under the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University, Illinois under the mentorship of Dr Mercouri Kanatzidis in June 2009. His work on the study of thermoelectric materials was primarily based on PbTe (Lead-Tellurium), with a rudimentary focus towards energy generation along with which he worked towards the synthesis of new chalcogenides framework in ionic liquid media.

On his return to India in 2012, he was awarded the DST Ramanujan Fellowship and joined JNCASR as an Assistant Professor. He was then promoted as an Associate Professor in 2018 (current). His present research interests include synthesis and characterization of thermoelectric materials and inorganic nanomaterials, which also dabbles into synthetic solid state chemistry.

Apart from winning the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award (2021) for Chemical Sciences and the DST Ramanujan Fellowship (2012-2017) he has conquered the academic domain with numerous other noteworthy accolades including

• National Prize for Research in Inorganic and Physical Chemistry – CNR Rao Education Foundation, (2021)

• ICSC Materials Science Annual Prize, Materials Research Society, India (MRSI) (2020)

• Swarnajayanti Fellowship, Department of Science & Technology (DST) (2019)

• Chemical Research Society of India (CRSI) Bronze Medal (2019).

• Young Scientists Medal, Indian National Science Academy (INSA), New Delhi (2016).

• Associate of Indian Academy of Sciences (IASc), Bangalore (2014-2017).

He is an invited fellow in the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), UK. He also holds the position of an Executive Editor in the American Chemical Society (ACS) for Applied Energy Materials, USA and is a board member for editorial advisory in several well sought after journals like ACS and Elsevier.

His SSB winning research revolves around enhanced and unmatched thermoelectric performance through processes like atomic ordering and intensified electron delocalisation in inorganic crystals like metal chalcogenides. In other words, these substances have increased electronic conductivity with a significantly lesser heat dissipation as compared to conventional materials where upto 65% of the energy gets drained as thermal losses. This is because these materials can directly recuperate and interconvert the energy from heat losses, into electricity, without any hazardous gas emanations.

This is not only ground-breaking but also paradigm-shifting because looking from the perspective of an energy economic future keeping the current scenario of depleting conventional resources in mind, it makes our future look brighter, and much greener with the capacity to curb the insurgent global warming predicament.

Dr T Govindaraju

Dr T Govindaraju is a Professor at JNCASR and the co-founder of VNIR Biotechnologies Pvt Ltd. He did his Masters in Chemistry (Organic Chemistry) from Bangalore University and then went on to pursue his PhD in Bioorganic Chemistry (Peptide Nucleic Acids) from National Chemical Laboratory, Pune. Prof Govindaraju was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology. Professor Govindaraju was awarded the Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar award in 2021 for his research in the development of small molecule diagnostics and therapeutics. Apart from winning the Humboldt Research Fellowship and SSB award, Prof Govindaraju has numerous awards and accolades to his name. These include,

• 2021 Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), Royal Society of Chemistry (London).

• 2020 National Prize for Research on Chemistry of Peptides and Nucleic Acids - CNR Rao Education Foundation.

• 2019 Special Lecture Award of the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan - The Pharmaceutical Society of Japan, Kyoto University, Japan - 2019

• 2019 CDRI Award for Excellence in Drug Research, CSIR-Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow, India

• 2017 MRSI Medal (2017), Materials Research Society of India

• 2016 SwarnaJayanti Fellowship (2015-2016), the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Govt. of India.

• 2015 Sir C V Raman Young Scientist Award (2014), Government of Karnataka

• 2011 Affiliate member (2011-2012), International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC)

His present research interest lies at the interface of Materials Science and Chemical Biology which focuses on functional and disease amyloids. Dr Govindaraju and his team have worked on a small molecule known as TGR63 for more than 10 years, which has shown promising results and could be a potential cure to Alzheimer’s disease. In an interview with the Times of India, he explained that the deposition and accumulation of amyloid proteins (Aβ) in the central nervous system (CNS) causes the disruption of neuronal and cell function in Alzheimer’s brains.

TGR63 can reduce the toxicity of Amyloid protein and halt the onset of Dementia by reducing the Aβ protein deposition in the hippocampus and cortex, consequently reversing cognitive decline. Studies done on mice affected Alzheimer’s brain with TGR63, have shown positive results with significant decrease in the deposition of Amyloid proteins, reduced memory impairment, learning deficiency and cognitive decline. These results have validated the drug efficacy of TGR63 molecules as a potential cure to Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. T Gonvindaraju’s research in the development of small molecules is far from just being revolutionary, it is also of cardinal urgency and significance as Alzheimer’s disease has challenged the medical industry, both economically and socially.

CONCLUSION

Natural sciences demand curiosity and innovation. At the foundation of the study of natural sciences lies the need to ask and answer questions. This curiosity creates a synergistic loop which benefits the development of sciences and consequently the society. The research studies carried out by Prof Biswas and Prof Govindaraju have significant implications on society and the future of energy and medicine respectively. The world is moving towards a green and sustainable future and Prof Biswas’ work on thermoelectrics serves as a stepping stone in exploring new avenues in Energy Science. As for Prof Govindaraju, TGR63 can potentially cure Alzheimer’s and permits us to address dementia with a new approach. Awards like the Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar award motivate the researchers and validate their dedication to their research. They parallelly unravel such significant innovations to the academic community and the society, with innumerable applications. These awards create a positive influence in the academic and scientific community. The work of these scientists inspires, encourages and motivates the youth to remain curious and strive for excellence.

REFERENCES

1. 3 Nov 2021, https://ssbprize.gov.in/Content/prizes.aspx

2. Kumar, C. (2021, February 26). New molecule could be potential drug candidate to halt or cure Alzheimer's. THE TIMES OF INDIA. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/new-molecule-could-be-potential-drug-candidate-to-halt-or-cure-alzheimers/articleshow/81215962.cms

3. Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize (SSB) for Science and Technology 2021 List of recipients. (n.d.). ssbprize. https://ssbprize.gov.in/WriteReadData/LatestUpdates/202109260133259214500SSBPrize2021Website.pdf

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6. Department of Science, DST, India. (n.d.). JNCASR Scientist developing innovative strategies to make high-performance thermoelectrics materials wins Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize. Ministry of Science and Technology, Department of Science and Technology (DST), India. https://dst.gov.in/jncasr-scientist-developing-innovative-strategies-make-high-performance-thermoelectrics-materials

7. JNCASR. (n.d.-a). Solid State Chemistry Laboratory | Kanishka Biswas’s Website. http://old.jncasr.ac.in/kanishka/

8. JNCASR. (n.d.-b). T Govindaraju / AWARDS AND HONORS. Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research. https://www.jncasr.ac.in/faculty/tgraju/awards-and-honors-0

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11. 5 Nov 2021, https://ssbprize.gov.in/Content/Detail.aspx?AID=577