Pucadyil has been working at IISER since 2010 and is currently an associate professor at the institute.
City-based biologist Thomas Pucadyil, from the Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research (IISER), Pune has been conferred the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award. The awards for science and technology were announced during the Foundation Day of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), held in Delhi on Wednesday.
Pucadyil has been working at IISER since 2010 and is currently an associate professor at the institute. His main area of interest pertains to cell membranes, and his team is involved in understanding cells and the corresponding membranes embedded into them. “Though the cells in our body have the same genome, our study is to determine their functions based on the unique identities they have. As this is dependent on the kind of proteins displayed on each of these cells, our effort is to learn how the cells manage to achieve this identification,” Pucadyil told The Indian Express.
He, along with Ganesh Nagaraju from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, have been awarded under the biological sciences category. The other awardees are Rahul Banerjee and Swadhin Kumar Mandal from IISER, Kolkata, Parthasarathi Chakraborty from National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, Amit Agarwal and Ashwin Gumaste from IIT-Bombay, Amit Kumar from IIT-Delhi, Nitin Saxena representing IIT-Kanpur, Dr Ganesh Venkatasubramanian from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bengaluru, Ambarish Ghosh from IISc and Aditi De from the Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad.
The award carries Rs 5 lakh and is presented for exemplary work to scientists working in the fields of biological sciences, engineering sciences, chemical sciences, earth, atmosphere, ocean and planetary sciences, mathematical sciences, medical sciences and physical sciences.