Founder & professor in the Department of Microbial Biotechnology, and Chief-Coordinator, DST-Centre for Policy Research at Panjab University, Chandigarh, with a rich experience of 39 years in the domains of academics and research.

After graduation, post-graduation and PhD from the Dept. of Microbiology (Hons. School), Panjab University, he went on to receive a second PhD (Microbiology) from the University of London, London (UK) and a Post-Doctorate from Washington University, Saint Louis, USA. He is a recipient of the prestigious Rockefeller Biotechnology Fellowship (USA) and Commonwealth Academic Staff Scholarship (UK).

He has to his credit over 100 research publications in international journals and four books in the field of Microbiology and Biotechnology and 3 in Policy Making. His recent book, ‘Mapping Patents and Research Publications of Higher Education Institutes and National R&D Laboratories of India’, has been highly appreciated by the policymakers.

He earned his BSC in Chemistry from Presidency College, Calcutta and MSC in Biochemistry from the Calcutta University.
He conducted his doctoral research in the laboratory of Prof. Umadas Maitra at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. For his PhD dissertation, he studied initiation of protein synthesis in eukaryotes. Upon receiving his PhD, in 2002 he joined the laboratory of Prof. Clifford Tabin at Harvard Medical School for his post-doctoral research where he studied the role of BMP signalling in limb patterning and bone development. He joined the faculty of Biological Sciences and Bioengineering of Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT Kanpur) as an assistant professor in 2006.

Since July 2018, Dr Amitabha is also serving as the Professor-in-charge of Innovation and Incubation and runs the Technology Business incubator of IIT Kanpur.

Dr (Ms.) Padma V. Devarajan is Professor in Pharmacy and former Head and Coordinator MTech Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technology at the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, India. She is also a member of the Board of Governors, President of the Innovation Council and In charge of the World bank Technical Education Quality Improvement Program (TEQIP) at ICT. She has over 100 publications and presentations in cited journals and national/international conferences, and five book chapters in the area of drug delivery. Her book on “Targeted Drug Delivery- Concepts and Strategies” published by Springer won her the Prof. N. R.Kamath Book Award at ICT.

Her second book on Targeted Intracellular delivery by Receptor-Mediated Endocytosis has been recently published by Springer. She has filed many patents international/ national, has seven patents granted, and five patents licensed and two technologies commercialized.