The Infosys Prize 2013 Life Sciences is awarded to Dr Rajesh S. Gokhale, director, CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, for his work in the field of lipid metabolism in tubercle bacilli.

Each year two million people are infected and die of tuberculosis (TB) and there will be 10 million new patients every year. Dr Gokhale discovered biochemical networks and new paradigms necessary for the synthesis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) cell envelope coat that makes these bacteria escape host immune systems. This discovery opens up new avenues to develop new therapy against TB.

As per the announcement of Infosys Science Foundation the winners of the Infosys Prize 2013 for outstanding research contributions across six categories such as Engineering and Computer Science, Humanities, Life Sciences, Mathematics, Physical Sciences, and Social Sciences.

Last year, Dr Ashish Lele, CSIR- National chemical Laboratory (CSIR-NCL), Pune and Dr. Ayyappanpillai Ajayaghosh, CSIR- National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (CSIr-NIISt), Thiruvanathapuram were among the winners of the Infosys Prize 2012, in the categories of Engineering and Computer Sciences and Physical Sciences respectively. Earlier, Dr. Imran Siddiqi, a scientist from CSIR- Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CSIR-CCMB), Hyderabad, was honored with Infosys Prize 2011 in the category of life Sciences.

Prof Samir K Brahmachari, DG,CSIR, said that this prestigious award to four CSIR scientists in consecutive three years after the inception of the award in 2009 exhibit that internationally competitive scientific research is being carried out in CSIR and CSIR has an outstanding young scientific leadership in position.