Prafullachandra Vishnu Sane

Prafullachandra Vishnu Sane
Born (1937-12-24)December 24, 1937
Chiplun, Ratnagiri district, Maharashtra, India
Residence Lucknow, India
Nationality Indian
Fields
Institutions
Alma mater
Known for Studies on Photosynthesis
Notable awards 1981 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize
1991 Bharat Jyoti Scientist of the Year Award
1994 IBS Birbal Sahni Medal

Prafullachandra Vishnu Sane (born 1937) is an Indian molecular biologist and plant physiologist, known for his pioneering studies on photosynthesis.[1][2] He is a former director of National Botanical Research Institute[3] and an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy, National Academy of Sciences, India, National Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the Maharashtra Academy of Sciences.[4] The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 1981, for his contributions to biological sciences.[5]

Biography

Prafullachandra Vishnu Sane, born on the Christmas eve of 1937 at Chiplun, in Ratnagiri district in the Indian state of Maharashtra to Vishnu Jagannath Sane and Indira, did his schooling at New English High School, Nagpur and college studies at Agriculture College of Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth from where he graduated in 1958.[6] After obtaining his master's degree in agriculture from Nagpur University in 1960, he started his career at Bureau of Indian Standards in 1961 and continued there till 1964 when he moved to the University of Alberta, Edmonton for his doctoral studies to secure a PhD in 1968.[4] He stayed in the North America for three more years, working at the University of California, Berkeley as an assistant research botanist and returned to India to join the Agricultural Biochemistry Section of Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) as its head in 1972 where he worked till 1984. In between, receiving an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation fellowship, he spent one year at Ruhr University Bochum during 1979–80. In 1984, he became the director of the National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow and held the post till his superannuation in 1997. Post retirement, he joined Jain Irrigation Systems Limited, Jalgaon where he is a principal adviser at their Agri-Biotech division.[6]

Sane is married to Suchitra Khandekar and the couple has two sons. The family lives in Lucknow.[6]

Legacy

During his stint at Ruhr University Bochum, Sane worked on the modality of electron transport and transduction of energy in chloroplast membranes and discovered that the generation of pH gradient across the membranes is due to the presence of proton-translocating proteins.[7] Basing his studies on a mutant of Gateway Barley, he did an elaborate biochemical analysis of carbon assimilation and reactions of Ch1 biosynthesis. Associating with Roderic Park, he developed a new method for the isolation of PS-I and PS-II, without the use of detergents and propounded a model for distributing the two photosystems in the chloroplast lamellae. Their findings were published in an article, Distribution of Function and Structure in Chloroplast Lamellae,[8] which eventually became a citation classic.[4]

During his days at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Sane led a team who discovered the involvement of charge pairs in producing the emitted light and these researches are reported to have helped in widening our knowledge about energy storage during electron transport.[9] Later, he also made pioneering studies on tobacco transgenic plants and sorghum.[4] He has published his research findings as chapters in several books and in over 160 articles,[10] ResearchGate, an online repository of scientific papers, has listed 87 of them.[11] It was during his tenure as the director of National Botanical Research Institute, the Centre for Plant Molecular Biology was established at the institute. He is a former president and an adviser to the International Society of Environmental Botanists (ISEB), a Lucknow-based non-profit, non-governmental organisation promoting coordinated research on plants and environmental pollution[12] and served as a member of the council of the Indian National Science Academy from 1996 to 1998. He has also mentored 20 scholars in their doctoral studies.[4]

Awards and honors

The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research awarded Sane the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 1981.[5] The National Academy of Sciences, India elected him as their fellow in 1987,[13] the same year as he became an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences.[14] The year 1991 brought him the Bharat Jyoti Best Scientist of the Year Award as well as fellowships of the Indian National Science Academy and the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences.[15] Sane, who is also a fellow of the Maharashtra Academy of Sciences[16] and a life member of the Society for Plant Physiology and Biochemistry and the Indian Photobiology Society,[17] received the Birbal Sahni Medal of the Indian Botanical Society in 1994.[18]

Selected bibliography

See also

References

  1. "Brief Profile of the Awardee". Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize. 2016. Retrieved September 28, 2016.
  2. Mohammad Yunus; Uday Pathre; Prasanna Mohanty (22 June 2000). Probing Photosynthesis: Mechanism, Regulation & Adaptation. CRC Press. pp. 9–. ISBN 978-0-7484-0821-4.
  3. K. R. Khanna (19 December 1990). Biochemical Aspects of Crop Improvement. CRC Press. pp. 1–. ISBN 978-0-8493-5418-2.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 "Indian Fellow - Sane". Indian National Science Academy. 2016. Retrieved September 28, 2016.
  5. 1 2 "View Bhatnagar Awardees". Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize. 2016. Retrieved September 19, 2016.
  6. 1 2 3 "Sane, Prafullachandra Vishnu FELLOW, ELECTED 1991". National Academy of Agricultural Sciences. 2016. Retrieved September 29, 2016.
  7. Govindjee; J.T. Beatty; H. Gest, J.F. Allen (15 July 2006). Discoveries in Photosynthesis. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 1195–. ISBN 978-1-4020-3324-7.
  8. R B Park, and P V Sane (June 1971). "Distribution of Function and Structure in Chloroplast Lamellae". Annual Review of Plant Physiology. 22: 395–430. doi:10.1146/annurev.pp.22.060171.002143.
  9. "Handbook of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize Winners" (PDF). Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. 1999. p. 35. Retrieved September 28, 2016.
  10. "Prafullachandra Vishnu Sane on Microsoft Academic Search". Microsoft Academic Search. 2016. Retrieved September 29, 2016.
  11. "P. V. Sane on ResearchGate". ResearchGate. 2016. Retrieved September 29, 2016.
  12. "Office bearers". International Society of Environmental Botanists. 2016. Retrieved September 29, 2016.
  13. "NASI Fellows". National Academy of Sciences, India]. 2016. Retrieved September 29, 2016.
  14. "IAS fellows". Indian Academy of Sciences. 2016. Retrieved September 29, 2016.
  15. "NAAS fellows". National Academy of Agricultural Sciences. 2016. Retrieved September 29, 2016.
  16. "MAS fellows". Maharashtra Academy of Sciences. 2016. Retrieved September 29, 2016.
  17. "Life Members". Indian Photobiology Society. 2016. Retrieved September 29, 2016.
  18. "Award Achievers". Indian Botanical Society. 2016. Retrieved September 29, 2016.

External links

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