Darshan Ranganathan

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Darshan Ranganathan ( Hindi : दर्शन रंगनाथन; born June 4, 1941 in Delhi , died June 4, 2001 ) was an organic chemist from India, best known for her work in bioorganic chemistry. She was honored for her pioneering work in the field of protein folding and for her work on the supramolecular structure and molecular design of compounds, the chemical simulation of key biological processes, the synthesis of functional hybrid peptides and the synthesis of nanotubes.

life and work

Darshan Ranganathan was born in Delhi in 1941 in what was then British India as the daughter of Vidyavati Markan and Shanti Swarup as Darshan Markan. She was educated in Delhi and received her PhD in chemistry from Delhi University by TR Sheshadri in 1967 . She was initially hired as a lecturer and later became the head of the chemistry department at Miranda College in Delhi. She received an 1851 research grant from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 to give her the opportunity to work with Professor DHR Barton at Imperial College London .

In 1970 she began her research at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur (IIT Kanpur). That year she married the chemist Subramania Ranganathan , with whom she also wrote several papers in the field of organic chemistry and edited an ongoing series entitled Current Organic Chemistry Highlights . She continued her research at IIT Kanpur on the basis of scholarships, but unwritten rules prevented her from joining the faculty because her husband was already a member. In 1993 she began her work at the Regional Research Laboratory in Trivandrum and in 1998 she moved to the IICT in Hyderabad , where she became head of the institute. During these years she worked continuously with Isabella Karle at the United States Naval Research Laboratory .

In 1997, Darshan Ranganathan was diagnosed with breast cancer. She died on June 4, 2001 on her 60th birthday.

plant

Ranganathan's particular passion was reproducing natural biochemical processes in the laboratory. She created a protocol that enabled the autonomous reproduction of imidazole , a component of histadine and histamine of pharmaceutical importance. She also developed a work simulation of the urea cycle . Over the course of her career, she has become a specialist in the development of proteins that have a multitude of different conformations and the design of nanostructures with self-assembling peptides.

She was India's most prolific organic chemist at the time of her death and had a dozen publications in the Journal of the American Chemical Society , six in the Journal of Organic Chemistry, and numerous other journals in the last five years of her life . She was elected a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1999 and has received several awards, including the Third World Academy of Sciences Award in Chemistry for her outstanding contributions to bioorganic chemistry, particularly to supramolecular compounds, to molecular design, to the chemical simulation of important biological processes , for the synthesis of functional hybrid peptides and for the synthesis of proteinogenic nanotubes.

Honors

Darshan Ranganathan has been honored in many ways for her work:

  • Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences
  • Third World Academy of Sciences Award Prize in Chemistry, 1999
  • Senior Research Scholarship of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851
  • AV Rama Rao Foundation Award
  • Jawaharlal Nehru Birth Centenary Visiting Fellowship
  • Sukh Dev Endowment Lectureship

The biennial Professor Darshan Ranganathan Memorial Lecture, intended to be "given by a scientist who has made outstanding contributions in any area of ​​science and technology," was established in 2001 by her husband.

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b StreeShakti - The Parallel Force . Accessed December 1, 2019.
  2. ↑ a b c d e D. Balasubramanian: Darshan Ranganathan - A tribute . (PDF) In: Current Science . 81, No. 2, July 25, 2001, pp. 217-219.
  3. ↑ Venkatraman, Vijaysree: Book Review: Forgotten daughters . In: The Hindu: Literary Review . Retrieved October 20, 2012. 
  4. ↑ Darshan Ranganathan: Design and synthesis of self-assembling peptides . (PDF) In: Pure and Applied Chemistry . 68, No. 3, 1996, pp. 671-674. doi : 10.1351 / pac199668030671 .
  5. ↑ Academy Awards - Subjectwise Medals / Lectures / Awards . In: Indian National Science Academy . Retrieved on December 1, 2019 (archive link)
personal data
SURNAME Ranganathan, darshan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Indian organic chemist
DATE OF BIRTH June 4, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Delhi
DATE OF DEATH June 4, 2001