Dr S Nagarajan

State University, Columbus, USA, have been selected for the Borlaug award for the year 2005. The prestigious award is given annually to honor and recognize outstanding research and contributions in the field of agriculture, environment and extension by Indian scientists.

The Borlaug award was instituted by the Coromandel Fertilizer of the Murugappa Group in 1972 to honor Nobel laureate Dr Norman E Borlaug, who is responsible for the wheat revolution in India.

Dr S Nagarajan, who is internationally respected as a wheat pathologist, has been recognized for his contribution to the advancement of the wheat program, pathology of wheat rusts and its elimination, and as an educator.

Dr Rattan Lal has been selected for his work in soil sciences and integrated natural resource management. He is known for his research and development activity that has helped significantly to reduce global food insecurity by increasing the understanding of the nature of soil, importance of soil healthcare.

Three Indians among finalists for Asia-Pacific BioBusiness Award
Dr Krishna M Ella, Dr Swati Piramal and Dr Prathap C Reddy are among the finalists of the Asia-Pacific BioBusiness Leadership Award 2005 to be presented at its annual Asia-Pacific Business Outlook Conference on April 7, 2005.

Dr Prathap C Reddy

The award recognizes leaders (individuals, organizations and corporations) that best exemplify the spirit of innovation, enterprise and entrepreneurship in areas of biobusiness (healthcare, biomedical, agricultural, food, environmental and emerging technology areas in the life sciences and biotechnology). This award is the first in a series of regional and global BioBusiness Leadership Awards. This award program underlines the USC Marshall School's strong international focus, and its commitment to business excellence, innovation, and leadership.

The other finalists for the award are Dr Joong-Myung Cho (Korea), former R&D director, LG Chemicals and Yoh-Chie Lu (China/Singapore/USA), founder of Biosensors.

Padma awards presented
President A P J Abdul Kalam gave away the prestigious Padma Awards for 2005 at a glittering ceremony at the stately Durbar Hall of Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on March 28, 2005. The awardees included seven leaders from the biotech industry and five of them happen to be the captains of biotech and life science companies.

Out of the 96 Padma awardees, seven are business people - Dr Bhai Mohan Singh of Ranbaxy, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw of Biocon, Varaprasad Reddy of Shantha Biotechnics, Dr Yusuf Khwaja Hamied of Cipla, Dr Cyrus Soli Poonawalla of Serum Institute of India, Azim Premji of Wipro and Dr Brijmohan Lall Munjal of Hero. The profile of the biotech industry has been further enriched with awards presented to Dr Martanda Varma Sankaran Valiathan (Padma Vibhushan) and Prof V S Ramamurthy, secretary, Department of Science & Technology (Padma Bhushan).

Indian researcher excels

Dr S Nagarajan

Ashwin Sivakumar, a research fellow at the Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki, has been selected amongst the 100 most promising young scientists and MBAs from the life sciences sector worldwide by Biovision and Science. He will be in the class of 2005 participating in Biovision.Nxt event, a part of world life science forum to be held in April this year. Ashwin's research focuses on multiple themes: First theme being dealing with function classification systems and study of diverse super-families using comparative genomic approaches. His parallel area of research deals with management and strategy issues in the biotech sector.