Dr Srivari Chandrashekar is CSIR IICT director

Dr. Srivari Chandrasekhar has been appointed as Director for CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, a premier research institute in India, by President, Council of Scientific & Industrial Research & Hon'ble Prime Minister of India, Mr. Narendra Modi.

Dr. Srivari was born in 1964 in Hyderabad, completed all his primary and higher education in Hyderabad and Joined IICT in 1986 as Junior Research Fellow to his Ph. D Programme. After completing his Ph. D (1991) with the then Director Dr. A. V. Rama Rao, he moved to USA for a post doctoral position with Prof. J. R. Falck (1991-94).

He is also an Alexander von Humboldt fellow. He joined CSIR-IICT as Scientist C in 1994 and grew upto the level of Chief Scientist in 2010. Since then he has been leading one of the largest group, Natural Products Chemistry at IICT. He is a Fellow of all the three Indian Science academies, i.e., National Academy of Sciences, Indian Academy of Sciences and Indian National Science academy.

He has made significant contributions in diverse areas of organic chemistry with a special emphasis on chiral chemistry, total synthesis of biologically active natural products and pharmaceutical products. He has developed polyethylene glycol (PEG) as a novel, environmentally benign solvent medium. He has developed technologies for synthesis of latest anti-tuberculosis drug, bedaquiline; anti-tumor and abortive drug, mesoprostol; anti-platelet molecule, beroprost; antidepressive compound, sertralin and drug for treatment of schizophrenia, asenapine.

Mr. Chandrasekhar has more than 250 publications with 5000 citations. 50 students have been already awarded Ph. D. degree under his able guidance and 20 post doctoral associates have worked in his group. He has received several accolades including CNR Rao National Prize for Chemical Research 2012, CSIR Technology award 2014 and Infosys prize in Chemical Sciences 2014 for his contributions in process development and applied sciences.