Secretary of the DBT, K. VijayRaghavan elected a foreign associate of the USNAS

The Secretary of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India, Krishnaswamy VijayRaghavan on 4 May 2014 elected a foreign associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (USNAS).

Dr. VijayRaghavan is one of 21 new foreign associates elected in 2014. He had joined a select group of Indians which includes the former NCBS Director, Obaid Siddiqi; National Research Professor C.N.R. Rao, evolutionary biologists Raghavendra Gadagkar and Madhav Gadgil, and aerospace engineer Roddam Narasimha.

Members are elected to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Membership is a widely accepted mark of excellence in science and is considered one of the highest honours a scientist can receive.

Dr. VijayRaghavan is a Distinguished Professor at the National Centre for Biological Sciences,

Awards

• In 1998, K. VijayRaghavan was conferred with the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology award by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research.
• In 2006, he was awarded the J.C.Bose Fellowship
• In 2012, he received the H K Firodia Award for his original contributions to the field of life sciences, particularly to developmental biology, genetics and neurogenetics.
• In 2012, he became Fellow of Royal Society.
• In 2013, he was awarded with Padma shri by Government of India.

Achievements

He set up a laboratory for Drosophila developmental genetics. He worked to establish and develop the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), which is now one of the leading laboratories for research in biology in India.

He worked on the brain-muscle interface and how cells and individuals make decisions that lead to their merging their identities to achieve an effective system function.