BRIEF PROFILE OF DR. B. C. DAS

Field of Specialization: MOLECULAR BIOLOGY OF CANCER, MOLECULAR VIROLOGY HUMAN GENETICS & MUTATION RESEARCH

Academic Awards/ Honours received

• Sandoz Oration Award of ICMR for Cancer Research for 1992 .

• American Cancer Society (ACS) International Fellowship Award, 1994 from International Union Against Cancer (UICC), 1995.

•Fellow of International Union Against Cancer (UICC) since 1996.

• Elected as a Fellow of National Academy of Sciences (F.N.A.Sc.), Allahabad, in 1998.

• Received Dr. B.C. Roy National Award and President's Gold Medal in 1999 by Medical Council of India (MCI), New Delhi.

•Elected as a Fellow of Indian Academy of Sciences (F.A.Sc.) in 2001.

•Recognized as a WHO expert for Global HPV Vaccine Program since 2003.

• Oration Award of Indian Association for Cancer Research , Mumbai in 2004.

•Elected as a Fellow of National Academy of Medical Sciences (F.A.M.S.) , New Delhi in 2004.

•Elected as a Fellow of Indian National Science Academy (FNA), New Delhi in 2005.

•Ranbaxy Research Award in Applied Medical Sciences by Ranbaxy Research Foundation for 2005.

•Elected as President of Indian Association for Cancer Research (IACR), 2006-2009.

•Pran Nath Chuttani-ICMR Oration Award of National Academy of Medical Sciences (NAMS) for 2006.

•Ramniklal J. Kinavala Cancer Research Award, of Gujarat Cancer Research Society & Institute, Ahmedabad for 2006.

•Dr. Prem Nath Wahi Award of ICMR in Preventive Oncology for 2006.

•J. C. Bose National Fellowship, August 2008 to July 2013.

• FICCI Award for Innovative R & D in Life Sciences/Applied Research for 2008 – 09 .

• SAASCR Award Society of American Asian Scientists in Cancer Research, 2010.

Foreign Visits in last 4 years:

•  July 14-July 22, 2005, Malaysia for attending Inaugural Asia-Oceania Research organization on Genital Infections and Neoplasia (AOGIN).

•  August 26-September 2, China for attending International symposium on Esophageal Cancer in Linxian, China .

•  July 9- July 16, 2007, German Cancer Research Institute, Heidelberg, Germany for attending Indo-German Workshop on Cancer Research held in Germany on 13 th July 2007.

•  Jan 22- Jan 25, 2008, Geneva , Switzerland for attending the WHO HPV meeting, 23-25 Jan 2008, as an Advisor to HPV Vaccine Monitoring Program.

•  Jan 25- Jan 27, 2008, Vienna, Austria for visiting the IMP (Research Institute of Molecular Pathology), Vienna.

•  Jan. 20 – 23, 2009, Singapore, for attending one day workshop on ST HPV Biochip organized by ST Microelectronics, Science Park, Singapore.

•  Nov. 15 – 18, 2009, Poland, for attending a workshop on “Promoting Dual Use Education in Life Sciences” organized by Polish Academy of Sciences, Staszic Palace, Nowy Swiat 72, Warsaw, Poland.

Academic Contributions:

1.  Total number of Research Papers published : 145 International (Impact factor 2.5 to 25) : 115 National (indexed journals only) 25

2.  Papers in the process of publication : 14

3.  No. of Journals/Books edited : 03

4.  Books – “DNA SCIENCE IN HUMAN HEALTH AND DISEASE”

(1 st draft ready for Springer Verlag, India)

5. Research Experience : 34 Yrs.

6. Teaching Experience : 10 Yrs.

7. U.S PATENT (Application No. – 10/444,988 date May 27, 2003) : 02 . Invited/ plenary talks delivered : 142

8. Conference/ Symposium attended and paper presented (Abstracts) : 130

9. NO. OF Ph.D. AWARDED : 19

10. NO. OF Ph.D. THESIS SUBMITTED : 3

11. NO. OF Ph.D. REGISTERED : 9

12. NO. OF MD/DM/MS/DNB THESIS COMPLETED ON MOLECULAR ONCOLOGY /MOLECULAR MEDICINE : 64

13. NO. OF MD UNDER REGISTRATION : 3

14. M.Sc. Project Dissertation work guided : 60

15. DST – Sponsored Women Scientist (2003-2006)/RA/ICMR/PDF : 3

16. CSIR – Pool Scientist (2002-2005) : 2

17. Imparted Training in Molecular biology and medicine : 120

18. Organized National Workshops as Course Director for scientists/ students for 2 weeks : 3

19. DST-sponsored Contact Program on “Basic Molecular Techniques in human Health & Disease” : 1

20. Organized International Conference & Workshops : 1

21. Extramural Research Project completed as PI and Co-PI : 13

22. Indo-foreign Collaborative Research Projects completed

(Indo-German, Indo-UK and Indo-US) : 3

23. Present Indo-Foreign Project : 4

24. On-going research projects as PI: (Total) : 11

Notable Publications:

NATURE, LANCET, NUCLEIC ACID RES, HUMAN GENETICS, J. VIROLOGY, J. GEN.

VIROLOGY, ONCOGENE, J. MEDICAL VIROLOGY, CANCER, J. INFECTIOUS DISEASE,

INT. J. GYNAECOLOGICAL CANCER, J. MEDICAL MICROBIOLOGY, J. MOLECULAR &

CELLULAR BIOCHEMISTRY, BREAST CANCER RES. & TREATMENT, INT. J. CANCER,

FRONTIERS IN BIOSCIENCES, CHEST, J. CLIN VIROLOGY, HEPATOLOGY, MOLECULAR MEDICINE, J. CLIN. MICROBIOLY, VACCINE, AMERICAN J GASTROENTEROLOGY,

BMC CANCER ., LUNG CANCER, J. HEPATOLOGY, MOLECULAR CANCER etc.

Major Achievements

•  Pioneer of HPV research in India and established HPV prevalence in Indian women with cervical cancer as one of the highest (~ 100%) in the world and the most carcinogenic HPV type 16 is exclusively (~90%) high in India. Having made outstanding contribution in the field, he became the Expert Advisor of WHO and his Institute (ICPO) became the National Referral Centre as well as WHO Regional Referral Centre for HPV for whole of South-East Asia.

•  Early age of marriage below 18 years and high risk HPV infection have been shown to raise the risk of cervical cancer by 22 fold in Indian women.

• First time demonstrated that HPV infection and cervical cancer increases with the increasing number of pregnancies when viral replication increases significantly due to hormonal influence.

•  As many as four novel, but simple, cost-effective and reliable molecular diagnostic methods have been developed for early detection and mass screening of cervical cancer and are being used world over.

•  Experimentally as well as in clinical trials an extremely potent anti-HPV property specific synthetic (PDTC) and herbal antioxidative (Curcumin, Praneem, Berberine) agents have been demonstrated and provided clue(s) for development of herbal-based novel chemotherapeutic drugs for cervical cancer.

•  A novel ‘Paper Smear' method has been developed for dry collection, transport and storage of cytological specimens in dry form for a most simple and cost-effective screening for HPV in low resource settings. The technique is under US patenting. (No. 10/444,988) and is being processed for commercialization by ICMR following its multicentric validation by the Department of Biotechnology.

•  National mapping of HPV in women with cervical cancer and incidence of HPV in young adolescents girls and boys including mapping of HPV in cancers of all organ sites have been accomplished to create national base line data.

• A simple urine testing method has been developed for non-invasive screening for early detection of HPV infection and cervical cancer and also applicable for HPV Vaccine monitoring.

• Unlike cervical cancer high risk HPV 16 infection in Oral Carcinoma has been shown to cause well-differentiated carcinoma which facilitates better prognosis of the disease following treatment. This will help in developing new therapeutic modality.

• Discovered several novel gene mutations in breast cancer genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 in Indian women with familial breast cancer.

• Infection of Hepatitis E-virus (HEV) that causes severe liver damage, high mortality and develops fulfillment hepatic failure (FHF) in Indian pregnant women, the mechanism of which has been shown to be due to selective suppression of p65 component of NF-kB. This is a new insight to designing novel drugs for this disease.

•Developing Indian variant-specific and cost-effective second generation chimeric HPV DNA Vaccine having both prophylactic and therapeutic efficacy.

•Cervical precancer and cancer stem sells being characterized to develop therapeutic modalities for cervical cancer.

•Validation of several novel HPV screening methods (care HPV etc.) and genetics of differential incidence of breast cancer between urban and rural women are being investigated to develop effective strategies for National Cancer Control Programme (NCCP).

Administrative Experience

Dr. Das has created a Centre for Excellence in HPV and Cervical cancer research in India with all modern laboratory and clinical research facilities through generating funds from external agencies both national and international. He has administrative responsibility as Chief of Division of Molecular Oncology since 1989 and Director of ICPO from 2004-2008 and managing all intra and extramural research projects as PI, guiding Ph.D and MD students and carrying out all administrative activities very efficiently. Dr. Das has been chairman and member of several high power national committees, vision committees, scientific ethical committees and sectional committee members of Academys' PRC and selection committee members of ICMR, CSIR, DBT, DST, TMH etc. From 1 st August, 2008 Dr. Das has joined as Professor in the prestigious Prof. Gurbaksh Singh Chair at Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Centre for Biomedical Research, University of Delhi (North Campus), Delhi-7. Currently he is the director of ACBR.