D. Srinivasa Reddy

National Chemical Laboratory

Born on 10 April 1971 in the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, D. Srinivasa Reddy graduated in chemistry in 1991 from Osmania University and completed his master's degree from the same institution in 1993. Enrolling for his doctoral studies under the guidance of Goverdhan Mehta, a noted chemist and former vice chancellor of University of Hyderabad, he moved to Indian Institute of Science when Mehta took up the position as the head of the department of organic chemistry at IISc. His PhD came from Hyderabad University in 2000, and he proceeded to the US where he did his post-doctoral work at the laboratories of Sergey A. Kozmin of the University of Chicago and Jeffrey Aubé of University of Kansas during 2001–03. He started his career in 2003 as a principal scientist at Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories and became a research investigator in 2006 but a year later, he moved to Advinus Therapeutics as the group leader of their Discovery Chemistry research wing. In 2010, he was promoted as the section head; soon after, he left for National Chemical Laboratory where he works as a senior scientist.

Reddy's researches have been focused on total organic synthesis of molecules with a view to their applications in agricultural and medicinal uses. He is credited with the total synthesis of over 20 agro-chemicals which includes a mealy bug-attracting sex pheromone that has reported use in crop protection. He has also developed several other products that has potential uses as cell-adhesion inhibitors, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory as well as anti-cancer agents and as insect repellents. He employs the Silicon-switch approach for developing drug strategies for diseases affecting the central nervous system and his work has assisted in the drug discovery for the treatment of some infectious diseases as well as diabetes. His researches have been documented by way of a number of peer-reviewed articles; Google Scholar, an online article repository of scientific articles, has listed 123 of them respectively. He has also applied for 30 patents based on his researches.

Dr. D. Srinivasa Reddy of NCL receives the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize ( Group picture) New Delhi, India

Reddy received the Award for Excellence in Drug Research of the Central Drug Research Institute in 2013 and the Scientist of the Year Award of the National Chemical Laboratory the same year. He received three awards in 2015, starting with the NASI-Reliance Industries Platinum Jubilee Award, followed by the Bronze Medal of the Chemical Research Society of India. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, one of the highest Indian science awards, also in 2015.