Prof. D. Sundar, FNASc
Director IBAB and Biocon Chair
Joined IBAB in 2024.
Prof. D. Sundar is currently the Director of IBAB. From June 2024, he is on lien from IIT Delhi where he served as Institute Chair Professor in the Department of Biochemical Engineering. Prof. Sundar is also an Associated Faculty at the Yardi School of Artificial Intelligence and the National Resource Centre for Value Education in Engineering at IIT Delhi. He earlier served as the Chair of the Department of Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology, Coordinator of High Performance Computing (HPC) Facility, DBT-sponsored Bioinformatics Centre and the DBT-AIST International Laboratory for Advanced Biomedicine (DAILAB) at IIT Delhi.
Prof. Sundar is well recognized for his research in bioinformatics and computational genomics. His research findings have been recorded by way of >125 peer reviewed research articles. The primary focus in his lab is to employ an interdisciplinary approach (a) to design and analyse genome engineering tools to develop the ability to quantitate and visualize genome editing outcomes (b) to understand the biological activity of natural drugs; to successfully integrate computational biology along with modern experimental technologies to decode the mechanism by which natural drugs can be potential candidates for cancer prevention and treatment (c) to develop AI/ML-based solutions for regulatory genomics, drug discovery and cancer research; including deep learning-assisted integrative analysis of high throughput biological data.
Prof. Sundar’s immense contributions have been recognized by various Awards. These include the National Bioscience Award of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Govt. of India (2013), DuPont Professor Award from DuPont, USA (2013), Young Researcher Award of Tata Trust (2011), INSA Medal for Young Scientists from the Indian National Science Academy (2008), Innovative Young Biotechnologist Award IYBA from DBT, Govt. of India (2006) and the Young Scientist Award (2006) of ISCA presented by the Hon’ble President of India. He was recently selected for the prestigious Faculty Research Award (2024) by IIT Delhi. He is an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences of India and the Biotech Research Society of India.
Prof. Sundar is associated with the UNESCO DBT Regional Center for Biotechnology (RCB), Faridabad as Adjunct Professor and an Invited Guest Researcher at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Japan. He has also served as a Visiting Scientist at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA.
Prof. Sundar represents several scientific decision-making bodies in Bioinformatics, Biotechnology and Allied Sciences at the national level. He currently serves on the DBT Technical Expert Committee (TEC, Task Force) on Theoretical and Computational Biology [Bioinformatics, AI and Big Data], DBT TEC on Indian Biological Data Centre (IBDC), recently started by the Government for the purpose of deposition, storage, annotation and sharing of biological data with the objective of archiving all publicly funded life science data generated at the national level, DBT TEC of Human Resource Development, DBT TEC of Atal Incubation Centre (DBT-NER AIC) Scheme launched by NITI Aayog, DBT Advisory Committee for Biotechnology Eligibility Test (BET) and Graduate Aptitude Test in Biotechnology (GAT-B). He has also served as a member of DBT TEC of Synthetic Biology/iBEC, BioCare Scheme, as expert committee member of DBT-BIRAC for Healthcare and BIG grants, DBT-Biotech Industrial Training Programs (BITP) and monitoring of Biotech industries, Bioinformatics National Certification Exam (BINC), DBT Committee for reviewing the performance of BTISnet Bioinformatics Centres across the country and actively participated in the development of foresight analysis and framework for national policy on Synthetic Biology. He was inducted into the CII National Task Force on Science and Data (Genomics) in 2021.
Further details are to be found at https://web.iitd.ac.in/~sundar/