Umesh Varshney, born on 26 October 1957 in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, graduated in science from Jiwaji University in 1975 and completed his master's degree at G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology in 1979.[4] Moving to Canada, he did his doctoral studies on a Graduate Teaching Assistantship and Studentship by Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research Foundation (AHFMR) under the guidance of Lashitew Gedamu and secured his doctoral degree from the University of Calgary in 1985. His post-doctoral studies were at the laboratory of Johan Hans van de Sande at the university and, later, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology with U. L. RajBhandary. Returning to India in 1991, he started his career at the Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology (then known as Centre for Genetic Engineering) of the Indian Institute of Science as an assistant professor, and promoted to associate professor (1997), professor (2002) and dean of the undergraduate programs[6] and heads a laboratory[7] while chairing the Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology of the Indian Institute of Science.[8] He is also an honorary faculty at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research since 1999[9] and is a collaborator of the Genome Metabolism and Biostruct Laboratory, Budapest.[10] He is currently the Chairman of the division of Biological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.
Legacy
Varhsney's researches are primarily focused in the area of protein synthesis and DNA repair in Escherichiacoli and Mycobacterium tuberculosis.[11][12] His researches are known to have assisted in a wider understanding of the biology of mycobacterium, more specifically the interaction between ribosome recycling factor and elongation factor G as well as the uracilexcision repair pathway.[13] These studies are reported to have been aimed at developing newer drug targets and the attenuated strains.[4] He has detailed his research findings by way of articles published in peer-reviewed journals[note 1] and online scientific article repositories like ResearchGate, Google Scholar and PubFacts have listed many of them.[14][15][16] He was one of the organizers of the 21st International tRNA Workshop held at Indian Institute of Science in December 2005, has guided several scholars in their doctoral researches[4] and delivered keynote addresses at many science conferences.[17][18]
Amandeep Singh, Umesh Varshney, M. Vijayan (September 2016). "Structure of the second Single Stranded DNA Binding protein (SSBb) from Mycobacterium smegmatis". Journal of Structural Biology. 196 (3): 448–454. doi:10.1016/j.jsb.2016.09.012. PMID27659385.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
Bo Qin, Hiroshi Yamamoto, Takuya Ueda, Umesh Varshney, Knud H Nierhaus (May 2016). "The Termination Phase in Protein Synthesis is not Obligatorily Followed by the RRF/EF-G-Dependent Recycling Phase". Journal of Molecular Biology. 428 (18): 3577–3587. doi:10.1016/j.jmb.2016.05.019. PMID27261258.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
