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About RUSA Coordinator

Dr. K. Balamurugan is currently serving as Professor & Head in the Department of Biotechnology. He has more than 25 years of research experience in the field of Functional Genomics and Proteomics. He has established a model system, Caenorhabditis elegans (as an alternate animal model) to the basic and advanced scientific research at the Department of Biotechnology, Alagappa University by attracting grants from various Funding Agencies such as DBT, DST-SERB, CSIR, ICMR, UGC and Industry (ITC-LSTC). His area of research is to understand the Host-Pathogen Interactions at the molecular levels. He has identified host specific immune regulatory pathways/players during bacterial invasion.

He was instrumental in promoting Start-up Small Incubators at the Alagappa University as the coordinator of Incubation and Technology Transfer Center during May 2016-2019. He also served as Special Officer (Recruitment cell). He has successfully completed 12 major research projects and curren tly operating two major research grants and one international travel grant (NIG-Joint-I). As of now, he has to his credit sixteen patents filed (out of which one got granted), 116 research papers in SCI Journals. He has an h-index of 30 and i10 index of 71 with an average impact factor of 3.81. His research involving multiple OMICS approaches to understand post-translational modifications (phosphorylation, glycosylation and ubiquitination), metabolites, coding and non-coding RNAs and also analyzing interactive network among different OMICS during Host Pathogen Interactions. His research findings paved the way to understand the roles and contribution of anti-infective and anti-aging therapeutics.

He has successfully guided 14 full-time research scholars for the award of Ph. D. and guiding six more. He has also guided 62 M.Sc. Biotechnology students in their project dissertation and 12 Post- M. Sc. Advanced Diploma in Molecular Diagnostics students.

His research contributions allowed him a place in well reputed scientific organizations in including American Gastroenterological Association, European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, American Society for Microbiology, Association of Microbiologists of India, Society of Biological Chemists, India (SBC), The Indian Science Congress Association, Proteomics Society, India (PSI), The Biotech Research Society, India (BRSI) and Indian Society for Comparative Endocrinology (ISCE). He was awarded the DBT-Rapid Grant for Young Investigator Award project in 2008 and DST-SERC Young Scientist Award project in 2011. He was awarded with Shri P. K. Das Memorial Best faculty award in 2013 in the Senior Biotechnology category for his contribution in teaching and research and Dr. R. R. Manimaran Memorial Lecture Award in 2014 for his contribution in understanding the effect of HPI during reproduction. Recently, he was awarded the prestigious Tamil Nadu Scientist Award -2020 (TANSA-2020) in Biological Sciences.

He has been serving as an Adjunct Faculty and Senate Member at the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER) Kolkata, since 2016. He was also a visiting Professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Agriculture and Life Science, Hirosaki University, Japan during 2018. He has visited countries such as, Taiwan, USA, Switzerland, Australia, UK, Germany, Portugal, Thailand, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore in connection with his scientific research and career development

He has served as Subject Expert in Selection Committees for recruitment of Faculty members/Scientists and Project Staff positions. He is also serving as Reviewer and Guest Editor in few SCI journals.

He is also holding additional positions such as Chairman of Institutional Animal Ethical Committee and Director of Patent Cell of Alagappa University.

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