Yamuna Krishnan won the award in Physical Sciences category for her ground-breaking work in the emerging field of DNA architecture, the ISF announced.
Yamuna Krishnan, an Indian professor at the Department of Chemistry, University of Chicago, has won the prestigious Infosys Science Foundation (ISF) award.
Krishnan won the award in Physical Sciences category for her ground-breaking work in the emerging field of DNA architecture, the ISF announced.
“By successfully manipulating DNA – the building blocks of life – to create biocompatible nanomachines, she has created novel ways of interrogating living systems, increasing our knowledge of cell function and getting one step closer to answering unresolved biomedical questions,†noted a press release issued by the Foundation.
Born in Kerala, India, Krishnan is the youngest woman recipient of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for science and technology, the highest science award in India, which she won in the year 2013 in the chemical science category.
Yamuna earned her Bachelor’s in Chemistry from Women’s Christian College, Chennai in 1994. She secured MS in chemical sciences in 1997 and Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 2002 both from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
She worked as a post-doctoral research fellow and an 1851 Research Fellow from 2001 to 2004 at Department of Chemistry at University of Cambridge, UK. Krishnan and her team spent about 8 years at National Centre for Biological Sciences, TIFR, Bangalore, India pursuing cutting-edge research in the areas related to structure and dynamics of nucleic acids, nucleic acid nanotechnology, cellular and subcellular technologies.
She moved in August 2014 as Professor of Chemistry at the University of Chicago.
“This is a shock. I did not expect it at all. I want to say that all of the work right from the foundations and the shell was done in India,†Krishnan was quoted as saying by thewire.in.
“The winners of Infosys Prize 2017 were selected from several nominations received from across universities and institutes and we are grateful to our distinguished jury members to have taken the time to evaluate and award the most deserving. By shining light on science, we hope to gradually stimulate the minds of future talent, and open up a new world of possibilities for all of us,†said K. Dinesh, President – Board of Trustees, Infosys Science Foundation.
The Awards Ceremony for the Infosys Prize 2017 will be held on January 10, 2018, in Bengaluru. The winners will be felicitated by Prof. Kip S. Thorne, Professor Emeritus at California Institute of Technology.
The Infosys Science Foundation is a not-for-profit set up in 2009 by the board of directors of Infosys at the time and some senior management. The mission of the Foundation is to encourage an interest in science and research.