Dr Samir K Brahmachari

Secretary to Govt. of India,
Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and Director General, CSIR

Email: dgcsir@csir.res.in
Webpage link: http://www.csir.res.in/

Prof. Samir K.  Brahmachari pioneered functional genomics initiative in India and led the Indian Genome Variation Consortium project as the Director, Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, CSIR. His core expertise is in structural and computational biology. Since November 2007, he has assumed the office of the Director General of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), which is the largest publicly-funded organization involved in scientific and industrial research, with 37 constitutional laboratories across India. He is a member of the HUGO Council and the Advisory Board of the X Prize in Genomics. As a member of the expert group on Human Rights and Biotechnology Commission of United Nations, he has addressed issues of unethical exploitation of genetic resources of the Third World and has championed the concept of rights of patients in benefit sharing in the development of genomic medicine. He has successfully led the Indian team in the Pan Asia SNP Project. He is the recipient of a large number of National and International awards and elected member of all four National Academies of Sciences and Engineering in India. In 2009, the Week magazine has identified him as one of the twenty-five most valuable Indians. Currently he is leading the Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) project and Pharmacogenomics for affordable health programme in India, with global participation.