M J S RESEARCH GROUP

A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Musti J. Swamy was born in 1959 in Narsapur, Andhra Pradesh and got his early education at Nuzvid, a small town in Krishna District, about 50 km from Vijayawada. After obtaining B. Sc. (1979, Andhra University, Waltair) and M. Sc. (Chemistry) (1981, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad), he worked on the protein chemistry and physical chemistry of sugar binding to plant lectins under the supervision of Prof. A. Surolia at the Molecular Biophysics Unit (Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore) and obtained the Ph. D. degree in 1987. Two post-doctoral stints followed, first with Prof. C. C. Sweeley at the Michigan State University (East Lansing, Michigan, USA), where he investigated the metabolism of gangliosides in cultured cells and then with Prof. Derek Marsh (Max-Planck Institut für biophysikalische Chemie, Göttingen, Germany), where he carried out biophysical investigations on lipid phase behavior and lipid-protein interaction. In 1993 he joined the School of Chemistry, University of Hyderabad as Lecturer and was promoted as Reader in 1998, as Professor in 2004 and as Senior Professor in 2019. His research interests include phase behavior and polymorphism of lipids,biomembrane structure and function, protein chemistry and structure and protein-ligand interactions. He has authored/coauthored over 150 research papers and reviews in these areas. He teaches courses on biological chemistry, spectroscopic applications and organic chemistry. He is an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences (India) and Telangana Academy of Sciences and an elected member of the Guha Research Conference. He was selected as the Andhra Pradesh Scientist of the year (Chemistry) in 2010 and received the Darshan Ranganathan Memorial Lecture award by the Chemical Research Society of India in 2009.