Governing Body

Dr. Anand Deshpande is the Founder, Chairman and Managing Director of Persistent Systems since its inception and is responsible for the overall leadership, strategy and management of the Company.

Anand holds a B. Tech. (Hons.) in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA.

As a true technology visionary, Anand’s strengths lie in identifying and investing in next-generation technologies and encouraging internal entrepreneurship to ensure that Persistent Systems stays at the forefront of technology innovation. Anand has been the driving force in growing Persistent Systems from its inception in 1990, to the publicly-traded global Company of today. He has been recognized by his alma mater, IIT Kharagpur, as a Distinguished Alumnus in 2012 and by the School of Informatics of Indiana University with the Career Achievement Award in 2007.

Prior to founding Persistent Systems, Anand began his professional career at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Palo Alto, California, where he worked as Member of Technical Staff from May 1989 to October 1990.

Anand has served numerous positions at various professional and non-profit organizations viz. NASSCOM’s Executive Council, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) India, where he was the first President, SEAP (Software Exporters’ Association of Pune) and Pune Chapter of CSI (Computer Society of India), CII’s Pune Zonal Council and as a Trustee in the Computer History Museum.

Currently, he serves as a Trustee of Persistent Foundation, Member of the Dean’s Advisory Council in the School of Informatics of Indiana University, and Member of the Executive Committee of MCCIA.

Anand is a founding member of iSPIRT, India’s first product think tank, started with the vision of creating a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem in India. Anand is also a founder member of Inter Institutional Inclusive Innovations Center (i4C). i4C is an independent, non-profit entity which acts as a platform to pro-actively scout, showcase, and handhold technology innovations, especially aimed at the base of the pyramid. With members of his family, he has established DeAsra Foundation (http://www.deasra.in), a non-profit entity which focuses on creating self-employment at scale.

Anand is married to Sonali and they have a daughter and a son.

Mr. Vishvajit Sahay belongs to the 1990 batch of the Indian Defence Accounts Service. An alumnus of St. Stephen’s College Delhi, he has diverse experience of working in the Government of India, having earlier served as Joint Secretary in the Department of Heavy Industry and Director in the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. He has held additional charge of the posts of Chairman & Managing Director, Heavy Engineering Corporation Ranchi, a Schedule ‘A’ CPSE, CEO & Project Director of National Automotive Testing Research & Development Infrastructure Project (NATRIP) and Director in the Directorate of Film Festivals, Delhi.  Within the Defence Accounts Department, he has experience of working in the Acquisition Wing of the Ministry of Defence as Finance Manager (Land Systems), a cadre post in the MoD. He has also worked in several field and Headquarters Organizations of the Defence Accounts Department with experience of closely working with the MOD, Army and Ordnance Factories.

At present, Shri Sahay is working as Additional Secretary & Financial Adviser for the Department of Science & Technology, with the charge of the Department of Biotechnology and the Ministry of Earth Sciences.

Dr. Alka Sharma is the Senior Adviser/Scientist ‘H’ in Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and former MD, BIRAC, a PSU of DBT, to promote public-private partnership in Biotech Sector.

She has made significant contributions in research and policy in the emerging areas of biotechnology. She has been instrumental in promoting public-private partnership in biotech sector across the country.

Her role as the Coordinator of COVID-19 activities in DBT and BIRAC has resulted in achieving significant milestones including development of 5 indigenous Covid-19 vaccines under Mission Covid Suraksha-The Indian Covid-19 Vaccine Development Mission under Atmanirbhar Bharat.

She is also coordinating the major activities of DBT including establishment of Biotechnology Research Innovation Council (BRIC).

She has received training at the Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, NIH, USA for the management of extramural programmes.

Received “CSIR Technology Award for Innovation” for her translational work.

Dr. (Mrs) N. Kalaiselvi assumed charge as Secretary, DSIR and Director General, CSIR, New Delhi on August 8, 2022. Dr. Kalaiselvi is the first women Director General of CSIR. Prior to taking over as Secretary, DSIR and DG, CSIR, she was working as Director, CSIR-Central Electrochemical Research Institute (CSIR-CECRI), Karaikudi.

Dr.(Mrs.)N. Kalaiselvi (born: February 5, 1967) obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Government Arts College, Tirunelveli affiliated to Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai. She obtained her Post Graduate Degree in Chemistry from Government Arts College Coimbatore and did her Ph.D. at Annamalai University, Chidambaram.

Dr. Kalaiselvi’s research work of more than 25 years is primarily focused on electrochemical power systems and in particular, development of electrode materials, custom designed synthesis methods, optimization of reaction parameters and electrochemical evaluation of in-house prepared electrode materials for their suitability in energy storage device assembly. Her research interests include lithium and beyond lithium batteries, supercapacitors and waste-to-wealth driven electrodes and electrolytes for energy storage and electrocatalytic applications.

A glimpse of her R&D activities includes:

• Modified electrode materials for high energy and high power lithium battery applications
• Novel/tailor-made electrodes for aqueous and non-aqueous lithium battery
• Development of polymer based electrolytes, characterization and deployment of polymer films as electrolytes
• Ionic liquid based electrodes and electrolytes
• Exploration of bio ionic liquids crystalline electrolytes for extended electrochemical potential windows.

Apart from executing numerous extramural research, collaborative and sponsored projects funded by DST, MNRE and CSIR, Dr. Kalaiselvi has served as a Nodal Scientist for MULTIFUN [Multifunctional Electrodes and Electrolytes for Futuristic Technologies – a Twelfth five-year plan project, sponsored by CSIR to the tune of Rs. 68.54 Crore] with CSIR-CECRI as the Nodal lab and 6 CSIR Institutes as participating labs during 2012-2017. The sectoral monitoring committee Chaired by Prof. Baldevraj graded this project as EXCELLENT.

She was involved in the development of practically viable Sodium-ion/Lithium-sulfur batteries and supercapacitors and continues her research in these fields. As a nominee of CSIR-CECRI, she has participated in the meetings conducted at various levels by MNRE and TIFAC (2015 onwards) for the implementation of e-mobility in India with indigenous technological support from CSIR and in particular from CSIR-CECRI in a major way. She was instrumental and coordinated the preparation of the Technical Report on NMEM (National Mission for Electric Mobility) in collaboration with TIFAC identified academic, research and industrial partners. She was a part of MNRE initiated Mobility Mission Concept Note too. Dr. Kalaiselvi was the Theme Director of Energy and Energy Devices (E2D) of CSIR, wherein CSIR-CECRI is the Nodal laboratory.

Dr. Kalaiselvi has more than 135 research papers and 6 patents to her credit. Under her guidance, 12 research scholars have received Ph.D. Degrees and 2 researchers are currently pursuing their Ph.D. She is a recipient of many prestigious awards including MRSI medal, CSIR Raman Research Fellowship, INSA-NRF Exchange award, Brain Pool Fellowship of Korea, the Most Inspiring Women Scientist Award and C.V Raman Mahila Vijnana Puraskara at 12^th National Women’s Science Congress held at Mysore.

Dr. Abhay Karandikar is currently Secretary to the Government of India, Department of Science of Technology (DST). Before joining DST in October 2023, he served as the Director, IIT Kanpur from April 18th, 2018 to September 25th, 2023 (on lien from IIT Bombay). He also served as Dean (Faculty Affairs) and Head of the Electrical Engineering Department at IIT Bombay. He spearheaded a national effort in setting up Telecom Standards Development Society of India (TSDSI), India’s standards body for telecom with participation of all stakeholders. Prof Karandikar was the founding member and former Chairman of TSDSI. He was also Member (Part-Time) of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) during 2018-21. Prof Karandikar has several patents issued and pending, contributions to IEEE, 3GPP standards, contributed chapters in books and large number of papers in international journals and conferences to his credit. Prof Karandikar was awarded with IEEE Standards Association’s Standards Medallion for his contributions to global telecom standards.

Mr. Pankaj Patel is the Chairman of Zydus Lifesciences Ltd., a discovery-driven, global Lifesciences company with operations in 55 countries worldwide. A stalwart and a visionary, Mr. Pankaj Patel combines both research and techno-commercial expertise. He has published over 100 research papers in peer reviewed journals and is a co-inventor in more than 64 patents. He has been conferred with Dsc. (Honoris Causa) by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow.

Mr. Patel has been appointed as the Non-official Director in Central Board of the Reserve Bank of India. He is on the board of several institutions, including Chairperson of the Board of Governors of IIM Ahmedabad and Chairman of IIM Udaipur and Invest India. He is also a Member of the Governing Board of India Pharmacopoeia Commission (IPC), Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India. He is also a Member of the CEO Advisory Committee of International Generics and Biosimilars Association (IGBA). Mr. Patel is a Past President of the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FICCI). He also officiates on the board of several Not-for-Profit & charitable institutions. Mr. Patel is the Executive Chairman of the Gujarat Cancer Society and Chairman of the Gujarat Cancer and Research Institute, a Regional Cancer Centre and one of the largest cancer centres of India, reaching out to the needy and underprivileged cancer patients. He also officiates as the Chairman of the Deaf and Mute School, Ahmedabad. He is also a Director and Chairman on the Board of Zydus Foundation which set up Zydus Hospital and Medical College, Dahod.

In recognition of his contributions to the healthcare industry in India, Mr. Pankaj Patel is a recipient of several awards including the Acharya PC Ray Memorial Gold Medal Award and the Eminent Pharmacist Award, the India Innovator Award at the India Business Leaders Awards instituted by CNBC. For his entrepreneurial vision, Mr. Patel was awarded the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the Life Sciences category.

Prof. Govindan Rangarajan obtained an Integrated MSc (Hons) degree from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, and a PhD from the University of Maryland, College Park, USA. He then worked at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab, University of California, Berkeley, before returning to India in 1992. He has been a faculty member of the Department of Mathematics, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), since 1992. He is currently the Director of IISc.

Prof. Rangarajan’s research interests include nonlinear dynamics and chaos and time series analysis. He is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, India. He was awarded a JC Bose National Fellowship. He was awarded the Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques (Knight of the Order of Academic Palms) by the Government of France and the Distinguished Alumnus Award by BITS, Pilani. He was also a Homi Bhabha Fellow.

Prof. Usha Vijayraghavan obtained her Ph.D. in 1989 from California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, U.S.A. in yeast genetics and her post-doctoral research was at Caltech with Prof. Elliot Meyerowitz where she began work on transcription factors that regulate plant development.

She is currently Dean, Division of Biological Sciences and Professor at Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. She holds the J N Tata Chair, at IISc, instituted by Jamsetji Tata Trust. Her group uses genetic and genomic tools to investigate key factors that control complex gene networks. A focused research area of her group is on the regulation of flowering and plant architecture in rice. Her group uses genetic and genomic tools to investigate key factors that control complex gene networks. A focused research area of her group is on the regulation of flowering and plant architecture in rice.

She is a fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, the Indian Academy of Sciences, and a JC Bose fellow of Department of Science and Technology. Her work has been recognized several awards some of which are the Har Swarup Medal of the Indian National Science Academy, The National Bioscience Award of the Department of Biotechnology and the C. V. Raman award of the Karnataka State Science and Technology Council.

Dr Vijay is currently working as an independent advisor and consultant in biomedical sciences. In the past, he was in senior management role in pharmaceutical Research and Development for 18 years. His main area of research was new drug discovery in cardio-metabolic disorders. He completed his Ph.D. (Microbiology) from the University of Pune, India, and Post-Doctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, USA. He has attended executive management program at Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and leadership development program at London Business School. He has authored peer reviewed scientific papers in international journals and is a co-inventor of several global patents. He is also on the governing board of several prominent scientific and educational institutions.

Dr. Srinivas (M.S. (General Surgery), M.Ch.(Paed. Surgery)) has joined the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in the year 1994, and currently working as Director, AIIMS, New Delhi since September, 2022.

Recipient many Awards & Medals including 5 Gold Medals during MBBS, MS, MCh [Pediatric Surgery] from AIIMS New Delhi, the U.C. Chakraborthy National Award for the year 1997 conferred by Indian Association of Pediatric Surgeons. He has done fellowship from Children’s Research Center, Our Lady’s Hospital for sick children, Dublin, Ireland.

Dr. Srinivas has more than 29 years teaching experience after M.S. Under his supervision 25 scholars have been awarded DM/MCh/MD/MS/PhD degrees as guide and co-guide. He has Special Interest in Medical Education, Medical College Hospitals, Good Governance.

He was deputed at ESIC Medical College, Hyderabad in 2016 as Dean and Head of the 1000 bedded hospital including Administration, Patient care, Finance, Teaching, Research etc. for: (A) ESIC Medical College Hospital (B) ESIC Super Specialty Hospital at Hyderabad.

His service contributions include the development of New Medical Colleges: (a) ESIC Medical College at Hyderabad. (b) ESIC Medical College at Bihta, Bihar. (c) ESIC Medical College at Alwar, Rajasthan (d) Seven Medical Colleges at Telangana.

His significant contributions at AIIMS New Delhi towards the development of new unit/ specialty/ laboratory/ facility/ programs/ therapeutic or diagnostic procedures.

Dr. Srinivas is a member of many editorial boards of Indexed International journals/Review Committees of National bodies and Institutions and (including Pediatric Surgery International, Indian Journal of Pediatrics, Indian Pediatrics, Journal of Indian Association of Pediatric Surgeons).

He has written many chapters in Text Books and has more than 180 International Publications. He is a member of 15 professional bodies (including Indian Association of Pediatric Surgeons (IAPS), Indian Association of Pediatrics (IAP), Association of Surgeons of India (ASI), Indian Society for Pediatric Urology (ISPU), National Academy of Sciences (NAS), European Society for Pediatric Surgery (ESPS) and Fellow of Indian Society of Pediatric Urology (FISPU)).

Professor Shalini Bharat is the former Director/Vice Chancellor of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India. Her research interests include equity and access issues with special reference to reproductive health, and health of women and youth; social determinants of HIV and TB, including stigma, discrimination and human rights issues; mental health; health vulnerabilities in the context of migration; demographic transition among minority communities; and qualitative and mixed methods research. As the former Director of TISS ‘Saksham’ program (2012-23), a sub-recipient of Global Fund grant, she led the development and implementation of psycho-social counseling, social linkages and capacity building for the national HIV Counseling and drug resistant TB control programs. 

Prof. Bharat’s research work has been supported by several UN organisations including UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNDP, World Bank and international bodies such as NIH USA, IAVI, Gates Foundation, and by Indian government including Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. She has published widely including a 4-Volume Series “Parsis of India: Continuing at the Crossroads” from Sage, “Health and Wellbeing of India’s Young People” from Springer, and is co-editing the India Series on Mental Health for the Journal Social Science & Medicine (Mental health). With nearly a hundred published articles, special reports and special issues of Journals, Prof. Bharat has lectured at Universities of Yale, Le Havre (France), Utrecht (Netherlands), London School of Economics, and was member of a high-level committee for the review of national HIV prevention program of Papua New Guinea. She serves on various Boards and Committees in the government and NGO sector.

Prof. Bharat obtained her MA and D.Phil in Psychology from Allahabad University.

Dr. Sivaram Pillai is a first generation entrepreneur and, one of the Co-founders and Director (R&D) of Proklean Technologies Pvt. Ltd., a company specializing in natural, non-toxic and bio-degradable products which replace chemicals in variety of industries. He was the CEO of Proklean from inception in 2012 until 2021 and made way for a professional CEO in the beginning of 2021. Proklean, currently operates in five industry segments – leather processing, textile processing, paper & pulp, wastewater treatment and the hospitality industries. Apart from reducing the effluent load, Proklean’s products reduce chemical consumption, save water, energy and process time.

In October 2015, Proklean was awarded the Parivartan Sustainability Leadership Award 2015 and in 2018 was listed in APAC 25 list by Cleantech Forum. Proklean also has been finalist for the global IChemiE Biochemical Engineering award in 2019, 2020 and 2021.

The technology developed by Proklean has been licensed to SCD Probiotics, a company based in U.S.A. for certain parts of the world

Dr. Pillai’s work experience spans Biotechnology, Instrumentation and Agriculture. Over the years he has been in front line selling, pre and post sales customer support, R&D Management, HR, Regulatory Affairs and Profit Center management.

His past assignments include Chief Executive of the Bioproducts Business of E.I.D. Parry, Chennai and CEO of SCD Probiotics, U.S.A.

He has a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Madras University. He has travelled widely all across the world and has rich experience in putting together international collaborations and Joint Ventures. His forte is in developing and commercializing technology based products and has multiple global patents to his name.

Gautham Nadig is co-founder of Mynvax, a clinical stage biotech company incubated at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Mynvax develops innovative vaccine products for respiratory infectious diseases. Prior to founding Mynvax, he was co-founder of a successful agribiotechnology company, Metahelix which developed many innovative biotech products including transgenic crops, superior hybrid seeds in field and vegetable crops. Metahelix was acquired by Rallis, a subsidiary of Tata Chemicals in 2016. Gautham is involved with a number of biotech start-ups in various capacities including advisory, board roles as well as an early-stage investor. He graduated with a Ph.D. in computational structural biology from the Indian Institute of Science in 1997.

Professor Pulok Kumar Mukherjee is working as the Director, Institute of Bioresources and Sustainable Development (IBSD), Department of Biotechnology, Govt of India having its presence at IBSD Imphal, Manipur; Aizawl, Mizoram; Gangtok, Sikkim and Shilong, Meghalaya. He has been working on Drug discovery from natural resources with its several translation components on chemistry of natural products, Pharmacology, therapeutics, chemical biology, metabolomics and related aspects. He has enormous expertise in Ethnopharmacology, ethno medicine, and evidence based validation of herbs used in several ancient systems leading to discovery of drugs from nature and from the ancestors. Prof. Mukherjee has more than 29 years of experience on several areas on development of Bioeconomy from Bioresources particularly on traditional medicine inspired drug discovery from Indian medicinal plants, Ethno pharmacology and evidence based validation of medicinal herbs to make them available from ‘Farm to Pharma’. His academic and research career has been outstanding, including globally acclaimed contributions on teaching and research on validation of medicinal plants from Indian systems of medicine, their formulation and standardization, which are useful bio-prospecting tools for the traditional medicine based drug discovery programme. Under his guidance, 35 students have completed their PhD degree. Prof. Mukherjee has more than 255 research publications having total Impact Factor ≥ 278; h-Index- 70, i10-index – 377; citation over 25000 times. Prof. Mukherjee has been listed as Top 2% of the scientist/authors of the world based on the independent survey made by a group form Stanford USA. He has authored/edited 8 books and 21 book chapters with Elsevier, Academic Press, Wiley, Pharma Press etc. He has several national/international patents. Prof. Mukherjee is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), Fellow of National Academy of Sciences, India (FNASc), Fellow of National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (FNAAS), Fellow of the West Bengal Academy of Science & Technology (FAScT). He has been awarded with several laurels from Govt. of India and abroad: awarded with the prestigious Commonwealth Academic Staff Fellowship from Association of Commonwealth Universities [ACU], UK; TATA innovation fellowship, by Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India; Outstanding Service Award from Drug Information association [DIA], USA; Career Award for Young Teacher from All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), BOYSCAST Fellowship from the Dept of Science and Technology (DST), Govt. of India; Best Pharmaceutical Scientist, from the Association of Pharmaceutical Teachers’ of India (APTI); Col RN Chopra oration award from Indian Pharmacological Society (IPS); IASTAM Award for Contributions to Development of Ayurvedic and Herbal Pharmaceutics by Indian Association for the Study of Traditional Asian Medicine (IASTAM) and many others. Prof. Mukherjee is serving as a Consulting editor, Pharmacological Research, Associate Editor of the Phytomedicine plus, Elsevier Science;. He is the member of the editorial board of several International journals including Journal of Ethnopharmacology, Phytomedicine, Pharmaceutical analysis, Synergy; Phytochemical Analysis, World Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Executive Editor of the India J Traditional Knowledge and many others. He is associated as advisor/member to different organizations and administrative bodies of Government of India and abroad. He served as the president of the International Society for Ethnopharmacology, Switzerland and the Founder of the Society for Ethnopharamcology, India, serving with the mission of ‘globalizing local knowledge and localizing global technologies’, Further details are available at www.pulokmukherjee.com Research Interest & Current areas of work: Prof Mukherjee and his research group has been working on Drug discovery from natural resources with its several translation aspects on the production and chemical processing of economically important Medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) particularly on the bio-prospecting of plants and their constituents. His works on metabolomics analysis for development of MAPs are useful for their value addition, reinforcement and sustainable development. His works established the therapeutic validation of the clinical usage of the medicinal plants and traditional medicine to strengthen the chemical and therapeutic claims of MAPs in Indian traditional system of medicine through scientific evaluation and evidence based validation through biological and chemical sciences. He has been working on several translational aspects for MAPs for their assessment through bio-analytical techniques, bioassay guided isolation, enzyme inhibition, pharmacological and microbiological assays. Research contributions of the team along with the translational aspects in the field of MAPs with the products/process developed along with the publications made, is being highlighted as follows:

• Development of Bioeconomy from bioresources
• Pharmacological and therapeutic evaluation of natural products.
• Chemical and therapeutic validation leading to traditional Medicine inspired drug discovery and development to make them available from Farm to Pharma
• Translational Research approach for development of Processes/ products from MAPs:
• Leveraging innovation for development of value added products from therapeutically potent lead components:
• Documentation and evidence based validation of traditional knowledge
• Metabolomics based metabolite profiling, Marker analysis and Standardization of MAPS
• DNA barcoding approach for quality related aspects of MAPS
• Bio-prospecting of natural resources MAPs for development of therapeutically potent lead
• Safety evaluation of herbal medicine
• Development of value added herbal formulations, quality evaluation and validation
• Development of e-nose technologies based on NIR and Raman spectroscopy for quality control of medicinal plants
• Exploring Synergy in MAPs research through omics technology, network pharmacology with their chemical and biological perspectives.
• Sustainable Development of MAPs for strengthening Bioeconomy
• Dissemination of Knowledge for promotion and development of MAPs

Ashwani Pareek (born 27 September 1969 in Delhi and native of Sambhar Lake, Rajasthan, India) is Executive Director of NABI, a prominent plant biologist and educator noted chiefly for his contribution in the area of plant molecular biology and biotechnology. He is currently working as Professor at the School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and Adjunct Professor at the University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia. He is a recipient of several honours including the Visitors award for Technology Development from the President of India for developing Stress Tolerant Rice of the Next Generation (STRONG) that has the potential to enhance the income of rice farmers. He has interest in understanding the physiological and molecular adaptations in xero-halophytic plants and development of transgenic rice plants with enhanced tolerance towards multiple abiotic stresses. After receiving PhD degree, Pareek received the prestigious Post-Doctoral Fellowship by The Rockefeller Foundation, New York, BOYSCAST Fellowship to work at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, USA and INSA-Royal visiting scientist fellowship to work at University of Cambridge, U.K. He has been an elected Fellow of various Science Academies in India. With over 20 years of teaching experience, more than 200 publications and several international patents, he has been serving as Editor of reputed journals such as Plant Physiology and many others.

Dr. G. Taru Sharma, Director of the National Institute of Animal Biotechnology (NIAB), Hyderabad, is 1990 batch recruited ARS scientist. She is from the first batch of doctorate from Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Izatnagar, did her post doctorate from LSU, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, US.Before joining NIAB she has served as a staff scientist at Bio-Med. Pvt. Ltd., worked at Centre of Biotechnology, NDDB, Mumbai and Director, Centre for Advanced Faculty Training in Veterinary Physiology, Professor &Head Division of Physiology and Climatology at IVRI, Izatnagar. Dr. Sharma has 34 years of research experience with the major research emphasis on assisted reproductive biotechnology and stem cellbiology.Her group has made novel and outstanding contributions in an area of buffalo reproduction, viz. developed an efficacious three-dimensional (3D) microenvironment model for extended in vitro culture of buffalo preantral follicles using gel synthetic surface matrix and gel droplet micro encapsulation, elucidated expression pattern profile for in-vitro produced and in-vivo derived buffalo embryos, generated an efficient technique for buffalo female germplasm (preantral, antral ovarian follicles, oocytes, embryos and stem cells).Her teamis now focused ingenerating organoids/3D stem cells/exosomes enriched scaffolds for regenerative therapiesfor livestock and pets.She is the coordinator of DBT-One health Consortium having 28 centres. Dr. Sharma is recipients of 32 awards while in service based on the outcome of research work of her group, some important ones are young scientists award and gold medal from ISC and SAPI, Prof. Nils Lagerlof Memorial Award for best research article, Prof. A. Roy honorary award, National Bioscience Award from Department of Biotechnology, highest research award of ICAR-Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, Bharat Ratna C. Subramanium best teacher award,Punjabrao Deshmukh Best Women Scientist award from ICAR, Vasvik award for an outstanding research work. She is an elected fellow of NAAS, NASI and NAMS, member inter Academia panel in WinS of (NASI, INSA andIASc).She has mentored/mentoring43M.V.Sc and Ph.D students, authored 21 books/book chapters, published 151 research articles, shared her work at various national and international platforms and is a founder president of Animal Physiologists Association.

Prof. Chandrabhas Narayana is the Director of Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology, Thiruvananthapuram. He is also full Professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore under the Department of Science and Technology. He has 26 years of experience in Research and Development in autonomous institutions of Government of India and guided several students for their Ph.D.  He has been several administrative capacities like Dean, Research and Development, Dean, Fellowship and Extension Programs, Chairman of Chemistry and Physics of Materials, Chairman of The School of Advanced Materials, etc. He is a highly accomplished Raman Spectroscopist. His work with Raman spectroscopy, along with x-ray synchrotron and molecular dynamic simulations, is truly interdisciplinary, spanning Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. In Biology his group has been contributing significantly to the synthesis of gold and silver nanomaterials and nanostructures in the area of Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) for applications in Biology. His group is pioneers in the use of Raman spectroscopy as an alternative technique to x-ray crystallography, along with MD simulations to probe the structure/function of proteins, drug-screening and drug design and development applications. The group also uses SERS for DNA/RNA detection, useful in diagnostics of disease, identifying SNPs, etc. The group also is using Raman spectroscopy to identify markers for early detection of diseases, in addition to using  Raman spectroscopy for tissue imaging.  Prof. Narayana is a Fellow of Indian Academy of Sciences, Fellow of National Academy of Sciences, India, Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry, Fellow of Kerala Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Jitendra Kumar is currently the Managing Director of Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), Department of Biotechnology, Government of India. Dr Kumar holds a PhD degree in Biotechnology from Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh. Subsequently, he moved to University of Illinois at Chicago, where he worked on leukaemia. He also holds an MBA degree from the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University, US.

After returning from US, he joined as a Vice- President of Life Science Incubator at IKP Knowledge Park, Hyderabad where he was involved in actively mentoring incubatee companies, creating pipeline of entrepreneurs through innovative models of team building around the technologies, working with public R& D laboratories and universities to create entrepreneurial models of commercialisation.

Later, he took charge as the Managing Director of Bangalore Bioinnovation Centre (BBC) with a focus on incubating innovations in agriculture, food and nutrition, biofuel/bio-energy and pharma/healthcare. He has worked closely with Department of Biotechnology, Government of India and the Department of Electronics, IT, BT and S&T, Government of Karnataka, to create a vibrant Life Sciences Innovation cluster in Bangalore. He is also a guest faculty at University of Agricultural Sciences, Centre for Human Genetics, Manipal Institute of Regenerative Medicine (MIRM) and Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. He is a member of various Central and State Government Committees and advises on policy matters related to startups, innovation and entrepreneurship in Life Sciences. Currently, he is a member of CII national committee on Biotechnology, Member of Association of Biotech Led Enterprises (ABLE), Member of committee for Karnataka Start-up policy and Member for Government of India supported Bangalore Innovation cluster under the aegis of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

He is an Internationally acclaimed thinker and advisor on Biotech Innovations and entrepreneurship. He has been invited as a speaker at various conferences in USA, South Korea and the Netherlands to represent India and Karnataka. He has inspired thousands of youths to start and build successful Biotech ventures. He has around 20 years of experience in research and innovation management in the area of life sciences. He has around 25 peer reviewed publications and around 45 products have been launched under his mentorship.