Indian biologist

Suman Kumar Dhar

Born|  (1968-03-06) March 6, 1968 (age 54)

Kalimpong, West Bengal, India

Nationality| Indian
Alma mater|

* Burdwan University
* Kalyani University
* Jawaharlal Nehru University
* University of Virginia
* Harvard Medical School

Known for| Studies on Helicobacter pylori and Plasmodium falciparum
Awards|

* 2010 National Bioscience Award for Career Development
* 2012 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize

Scientific career
Fields|

* Parasitology
* Molecular biology

Institutions|

* Jawaharlal Nehru University
* Harvard Medical School
* Harvard School of Public Health
* Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine

Suman Kumar Dhar (born 1968) is an Indian molecular biologist and a professor at the Special Centre for Molecular Medicine of Jawaharlal Nehru University.[1] He is known for his studies on the DNA replication and cell cycle regulation in Helicobacter pylori and Plasmodium falciparum, two pathogens affecting humans.[2] An elected fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India, Indian National Science Academy[3] and the Indian Academy of Sciences,[4] he is also a recipient of the National Bioscience Award for Career Development of the Department of Biotechnology in 2010.[5] The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 2012, for his contributions to biological sciences.[6]

## Contents

* 1 Biography
* 2 Career
* 3 Awards and honors
* 4 Patents
* 5 Selected bibliography
* 6 See also
* 7 Notes
* 8 References
* 9 External links

## Biography[edit]

Suman Kumar Dhar, born on 6 March 1968 in the Indian state of West Bengal, graduated in chemistry from Burdwan University in 1989 and completed his master's degree in biochemistry in 1992 from Kalyani University before securing a PhD in molecular biology from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in 1998.[7] After working briefly (1997–98) as a research assistant at the department of microbiology of the University of Nebraska, he did his post-doctoral studies at Brigham and Women’s Hospital of Harvard Medical School which he completed in 2001.[8] Returning to India the same year, he joined Jawaharlal Nehru University as an assistant professor at the Special Centre for Molecular Medicine (SCMM) of the university where he rose in ranks to become an associate professor in 2005 and a professor in 2011, finally reaching the position of the chairperson of SCMM in 2011. In between, he served as a visiting fellow at Harvard Medical School (2002–03), Harvard School of Public Health (2003–04) and Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (2007); he also served as a Humboldt Research Fellow at Bernhard Nocht Institute in 2008. Besides his academic duties at JNU, Dhar is involved in the establishment of Centre of Excellence in Parasitology, a Department of Biotechnology-funded project.[7] He was also a member of the proctorial committee constituted by JNU to inquire about the 2016 JNU protests.[9][10]

## Career[edit]

Dhar's research history starts during his graduate studies when he worked on Entamoeba histolytica, the protozoan which causes amoebiasis, focusing on its ribosomal DNA circle.[11] Later at Harvard Medical School, his post-doctoral studies were centered on mammalian DNA replication which assisted him to identify the ORC6 (origin recognition complex subunit six) and its role in viral DNA replication. He also identified geminin, a replication inhibitor, as a blocking factor of viral DNA replication, a discovery which earned him a US patent.[7] Later, he studied the human pathogens, Helicobacter pylori and Plasmodium falciparum and their DNA replication and cell cycle regulation.[12] He also worked on anti-malarial drugs and proposed Acriflavine as an anti-malarial agent, which has also been patented by him.[13] His work has identified PfGyrase for P. falciparum and HpDnaB helicase for H. pylori as targets[14] and these researches are reported to be helpful in drug discovery efforts for Gastric ulcers, Gastric adenocarcinomas and Malaria.[15] Dhar has documented his research by way of a number of articles[note 1] and online repositories such as PubMed[16] and Pubfacts have listed many of them.[17] He has contributed chapters to three books which include Epigenetics: Development and Disease by Tapas Kumar Kundu.[18] He is associated with many science journals such as Journal of Biological Chemistry, Molecular Microbiology, FEBS Journal and Medical Science Monitor as an ad-hoc reviewer and has delivered featured talks including his oration at the Gordon Research Conference on Host-Parasite interaction held in Rhode Island in 2012.[7]

## Awards and honors[edit]

While in the US, Dhar received two grants for his researches, a grant from the National Institutes of Health for studies on emerging infectious diseases (1997–98) and the United States Department of the Army grant for research on breast cancer (2000–03).[7] He received the Senior International Research Fellowship of the Wellcome Trust in 2005, the tenancy of the fellowship extending to 2010, and on its expiry, he received the Wellcome Trust-DBT Senior Research Fellowship in 2010. In 2006, Dhar received the Swarnajayanthi Fellowship of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT)[19] and four years later, DBT honored him again with the 2010 National Bioscience Award for Career Development.[5] He was elected to the Guha Research Conference in 2007 and the next year brought him the Alexander Von Humboldt Fellowship and the Swarnajayanti Fellowship of the Department of Science and Technology.[20]

A member of the American Society for Microbiology, Dhar was awarded the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research in 2012.[6] The National Academy of Sciences, India elected him as a fellow in 2011[21] and he became a fellow of the Indian National Science Academy and the Indian Academy of Sciences in 2016.[3][4]

## Patents[edit]

* Anindya Dutta, Suman Kumar Dhar (2001). "Geminin and ORC3N Inhibit Replication of Herpes Viruses, Pamiloma Viruses and Polyoma Viruses" (PDF). Patent No. No. B0801.70253US00. Dhar Suman Kumar.
* Suman Kumar Dhar; Srikanta Dana; Dhaneswar Prusty; Ashraf Dar; Pritam Mukhopadhyay (August 24, 2012). "Method of screening anti-plasmodial activity of acriflavin and acriflavin as an anti-malarial agent". Patent No. WO2014030171 A1. Dhar Suman Kumar.

## Selected bibliography[edit]

* Vijay Verma; Ajay Kumar; Ram Gopal Nitharwal; Jawed Alam; Asish Kumar Mukhopadhyay; Santanu Dasgupta; Suman Kumar Dhar (December 2014). "Modulation of the enzymatic activities of replicative helicase (DnaB) by interaction with Hp0897: a possible mechanism for helicase loading in Helicobacter pylori". Nucleic Acids Research. 44 (7): 3288–3303. doi:10.1093/nar/gkw148. PMC 4838378. PMID 27001508.
* Wohlschlegel JA, Dwyer BT, Dhar SK, Cvetic C, Walter JC, Dutta A (December 2000). "Inhibition of eukaryotic DNA replication by geminin binding to Cdt1". Science. 290 (5500): 2309–12. doi:10.1126/science.290.5500.2309. PMID 11125146.
* Wohlschlegel JA, Dhar SK, Prokhorova TA, Dutta A, Walter JC (February 2002). "Xenopus Mcm10 binds to origins of DNA replication after Mcm2-7 and stimulates origin binding of Cdc45". Mol Cell. 9 (2): 233–40. doi:10.1016/s1097-2765(02)00456-2. PMID 11864598.
* Dhar SK, Yoshida K, Machida Y, Khaira P, Chaudhuri B, Wohlschlegel JA, Leffak M, Yates J, Dutta A (August 2001). "Replication from oriP of Epstein-Barr virus requires human ORC and is inhibited by geminin". Cell. 106 (3): 287–96. doi:10.1016/s0092-8674(01)00458-5. PMID 11509178. S2CID 12479646.

## See also[edit]

* Entamoeba histolytica
* Amoebiasis
* ORC6
* Geminin
* Helicobacter pylori
* Plasmodium falciparum
* Acriflavine
* Tapas Kumar Kundu

* India portal
* Biology portal

## Notes[edit]

1. ^ Please see Selected bibliography section

## References[edit]

1. ^ "Winners of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Awards 2012". Indian Academy of Sciences. September 28, 2012. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
2. ^ "Brief Profile of the Awardee". Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize. 2016. Retrieved October 5, 2016.
3. ^ a b "Indian fellow". Indian National Science Academy. 2016. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
4. ^ a b "Fellow Profile". Indian Academy of Sciences. 2016. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
5. ^ a b "Awardees of National Bioscience Awards for Career Development" (PDF). Department of Biotechnology. 2016. Retrieved October 17, 2016.
6. ^ a b "View Bhatnagar Awardees". Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize. 2016. Retrieved November 12, 2016.
7. ^ a b c d e "Faculty profile" (PDF). Jawaharlal Nehru University. 2016. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
8. ^ "Decoding deadly pathogens - Dr Suman Kumar Dhar". Biospectrum India. December 12, 2012. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
9. ^ "Afzal Guru protests: Police slap charges of sedition, conspiracy". Indian Express. February 12, 2016. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
10. ^ "Arrest 'Anti India Elements' Says Rajnath, So Police Pin 'Sedition' on JNUSU Head". The Wire. February 13, 2016. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
11. ^ "Suman Kumar Dhar, Associate Professor and present Chairperson". JNU - SCMM. 2016. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
12. ^ "Handbook of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize Winners" (PDF). Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. 1999. p. 34. Retrieved October 5, 2016.
13. ^ "US Patent Issued to Suman Kumar Dhar on June 28 for "Method of Screening Anti-Plasmodial Activity of Acriflavin and Acriflavin as an Anti-Malarial Agent"". High Beam. June 28, 2016. Archived from the original on September 11, 2018. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
14. ^ "Suman Kumar Dhar on Global Professor Rank". Global Professor Rank. 2016. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
15. ^ Ajeena Ramanujan (October 2, 2012). "Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in Biological Sciences - Suman Dhar". India Bioscience.
16. ^ "Dhar on PubMed". PubMed. 2016. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
17. ^ "Dhar on Pubfacts". Pubfacts. 2016. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
18. ^ Tapas Kumar Kundu (13 November 2012). Epigenetics: Development and Disease. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 659–. ISBN 978-94-007-4525-4.
19. ^ "Swarnajayanthi Fellowship" (PDF). Department of Biotechnology. 2006. Retrieved November 1, 2016.
20. ^ "SwarnaJayanti Fellowship Awards" (PDF). Department of Science and Technology. 2007. Retrieved November 3, 2016.
21. ^ "NASI fellows". National Academy of Sciences, India. 2016. Retrieved November 2, 2016.

## External links[edit]

* "Suman Kumar Dhar". Faculty profile. Special Centre for Molecular Medicine - Jawaharlal Nehru University. 2016. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
* "Author: Suman Kumar Dhar". Author listing. PubPDF. 2016. Retrieved November 3, 2016.
* "Publications Authored by Suman Kumar Dhar". Author profile. PubFacts. 2016. Retrieved November 3, 2016.

* v
* t
* e

Recipients of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology in Biological Science

1960s|

* Toppur Seethapathy Sadasivan (1960)
* M. S. Swaminathan (1961)
* Bimal Kumar Bachhawat (1962)
* Jagannath Ganguly (1963}
* Dilbagh Singh Athwal (1964)
* Chirayathumadom Venkatachalier Subramanian (1965)
* Hari Krishan Jain (1966)
* Neelamraju Ganga Prasada Rao (1966)
* Arun Kumar Sharma (1967)
* Tathamangalam Ananthanarayanan Venkitasubramanian (1968)

1970s|

* Madhu Sudan Kanungo (1971)
* Narayana Balakrishnan Nair (1971)
* Birendra Bijoy Biswas (1972)
* Satish Chandra Maheshwari (1972)
* Bhyravabhotla Radhakrishna Murty (1973)
* Sardul Singh Guraya (1973)
* John Barnabas (1974)
* Obaid Siddiqi (1975)
* Archana Sharma (1975)
* Guru Prakash Dutta (1976)
* Kishan Singh (1976)
* Trichnopoly Chelvaraj Anand Kumar (1977)
* V. Sasisekharan (1978)
* Amar Nath Bhaduri (1979)
* M. K. Chandrashekaran (1979)

1980s|

* Asis Datta (1980)
* Jamuna Sharan Singh (1980)
* Prafullachandra Vishnu Sane (1981)
* Sushil Kumar (1981)
* Sunil Kumar Podder (1982)
* Ramamirtha Jayaraman (1982)
* Govindarajan Padmanabhan (1983)
* Thavamani Jegajothivel Pandian (1984)
* K. R. K. Easwaran (1984)
* Chhitar Mal Gupta (1985)
* M. Vijayan (1985)
* Madhav Gadgil (1986)
* Avadhesha Surolia
* Sudhir Kumar Sopory
* Bhabatarak Bhattacharyya (1988)
* M. R. S. Rao (1988)
* Subhash Chandra Lakhotia (1989)
* Manju Ray (1989)

1990s|

* Samir K. Brahmachari (1990)
* Virendra Nath Pandey (1991)
* Srinivas Kishanrao (1991)
* Kuppamuthu Dharmalingam (1992)
* Dipankar Chatterji (1992)
* Raghavendra Gadagkar (1993)
* M. R. N. Murthy (1993)
* Ramakrishnan Nagaraj (1994)
* Alok Bhattacharya (1994)
* Seyed E. Hasnain (1995)
* Kalappa Muniyappa (1995)
* Ghanshyam Swarup (1996)
* Vishweshwaraiah Prakash (1996)
* Jayaraman Gowrishankar (1997)
* Kanury Venkata Subba Rao (1997)
* K. VijayRaghavan (1998)
* Debi Prasad Sarkar (1998)
* Siddhartha Roy (1999)
* Valakunja Nagaraja (1999)

2000s|

* Dinakar Mashnu Salunke (2000)
* Jayant B. Udgaonkar (2000)
* Umesh Varshney (2001)
* Raghavan Varadarajan (2002)
* Amitabha Mukhopadhyay (2002)
* Satyajit Mayor (2003)
* Gopal Chandra Kundu (2004)
* Ramesh Venkata Sonti (2004)
* Tapas Kumar Kundu (2005)
* Shekhar C. Mande (2005)
* Vinod Bhakuni (2006)
* Rajesh Sudhir Gokhale (2006)
* Upinder Singh Bhalla (2007)
* Narayanaswamy Srinivasan (2007)
* Gajendra Pal Singh Raghava (2008)
* L. S. Shashidhara (2008)
* Amitabh Joshi (2009)
* Bhaskar Saha (2009)

2010s|

* Sanjeev Galande (2010)
* Shubha Tole (2010)
* Amit Prakash Sharma (2011)
* Rajan Sankaranarayanan (2011)
* Shantanu Chowdhury (2012)
* Suman Kumar Dhar (2012)
* Sathees Chukkurumbal Raghavan (2013)
* Roop Mallik (2014)
* Balasubramanian Gopal (2015)
* Rajeev Kumar Varshney (2015)
* Suvendra Nath Bhattacharyya (2016)
* Rishikesh Narayanan (2016)
* Deepak T. Nair (2017)
* Sanjeev Das (2017)
* Ganesh Nagaraju (2018)
* Thomas J. Pucadyil (2018)
* Kayarat Saikrishnan (2019)

2020s|

* Subhadeep Chatterjee (2020)
* Vatsala Thirumalai (2020)
* Amit Singh (2021)
* Arun Kumar Shukla (2021)

* v
* t
* e

N-BIOS Laureates 2010–2019

2010|

* Shantanu Chowdhury
* Balasubramanian Gopal
* R. Ashalatha
* Vinay K. Nandicoori
* Suman Kumar Dhar
* Ravishankar Ramachandran
* P. Karthe
* Dipshikha Chakravortty
* Debasis Chattopadhyay
* Anirban Basu

2011|

* Sagar Sengupta
* Niyaz Ahmed
* Santasabuj Das
* Ashish Arora
* Maneesha S. Inamdar
* Asif Mohmmed
* Shantanu Sengupta
* Sujata Sharma
* Dibyendu Sarkar
* M. M. Parida

2012|

* Vidita Vaidya
* Sathees Chukkurumbal Raghavan
* Asad Ullah Khan
* Munia Ganguli
* S. Venkata Mohan
* Durai Sundar
* Subrata Adak
* Aditya Bhushan Pant
* Naval Kishore Vikram
* Kaustuv Sanyal

2013|

* Govindan Rajamohan
* A. K. Mukherjee
* Alok Krishna Sinha

2014|

* Manoj Prasad
* Bikramjit Basu
* Debasis Dash
* Ashish Suri
* Deepak Thankappan Nair
* Ramandeep Singh
* Fayaz A. Malik
* Patrick D'Silva
* Deepak Gaur
* Kausik Chattopadhyay

2015|

* Sanjeev Das
* Ganesh Nagaraju
* Suvendra Nath Bhattacharyya
* H. V. Thulasiram
* Pawan Gupta
* Souvik Maiti
* Pravindra Kumar
* Anurag Agrawal
* Girdhar Kumar Pandey
* Sanjib Senapati

2017/18|

* Manas Kumar Santra
* Dipyaman Ganguly
* Subhadeep Chatterjee
* Soumen Basak
* Manoj Majee
* Arun Kumar Shukla
* Amit Singh
* Maddika Subba Reddy
* Beena Ramakrishnan Pillai
* Ashwani Kumar
* Mohammad Zahid Ashraf
* Ranjith Padinhateeri
* Suresh Kumar Rayala
* Prabhu B. Patil
* Pritam Deb

Authority control |

* ORCID
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