Did you know that it was Chetan E. Chitnis who recommended the induction of A. P. J. Abdul Kalam into the Indian space program?
Did you know that it was Chetan E. Chitnis who helped Vikram Sarabhai choose the location of Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station?
He is also the man behind the lead vaccine against Malarial parasite the Plasmodium falciparum, which binds to red blood cells (RBC).
Dr. Chetan E. Chitnis is the head of the Malaria Parasite Biology and Vaccines Unit at the Institut Pasteur in Paris and the former principal investigator of the malaria research group at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB).
Dr Chetan Chitnis comes from a family of scientists. While his father is an astrophysicist, his mother is a biochemist. He spent his childhood in an environment where science was always a subject of discussion.
Chetan E. Chitnis completed his M.Sc in physics at the Indian Institute of Technology Mumbai in 1983. Following this, he went on to earn a Master of Arts in physics from Rice University in Houston in 1985. Then, he obtained a doctorate in philosophy (PhD) from the University of California-Berkeley in 1991.
After completing his PhD, Chitnis worked as a Fogarty International Fellow at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, from 1991 to 1995. Returning to India in 1996, he became the principal investigator in the malaria research group at ICGEB, where he dedicated his efforts until 2014.
He established a pilot recombinant protein production facility at International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) that has been used to develop methods to produce recombinant protein-based malaria vaccines.
His research is like a puzzle piece, fitting together advanced studies on how diseases work with practical efforts to create solutions that we really need.
Dr Chitnis and the team also developed another vaccine for plasmodium falciparum by identifying erythrocyte-binding protein on a malarial parasite that binds to the host red blood cells (RBC).
He has authored more than 70 research papers and has received many awards, including Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar Prize for Medical Sciences, Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship, Howard Hughes International Research Scholarship, and M O T Iyengar Award for Research in Malaria from the Indian Council of Medical Research.
Are you aware of the award Dr. Chetan E. Chitnis received for his contributions to Life Sciences? Let us know in the comments.
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