OBCL: Organic and bioconjugate chemistry LABoratory
GRoup news
October 2024: Congratulations, Vishal, for being elected as a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI).
August 2024: Thank you GoI for recognizing our research contributions and Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award.
August 2024: Welcome Sagar to the group! All the best for your PhD research.
May 2024: Welcome, summer interns! Abharika, Aswathi, Anshika, Rahul, and Tushita.
February 2024: Additional research grant and human resource funds. Congratulations team!
January 2024: Welcome Sisir and Bishal to the group! All the best for your PhD research.
October 2023: Congratulations, Dwaipayan, for securing the prestigious Prime Minister's Research Fellows (PMRF).
September 2023: Welcome Samiran to the team - all the best wishes for your project.
August 2023: Welcome Deepshikha and Pratiksha to the team.
August 2023: Congratulations, Rajib, Pralhad, Neelesh, and Dwaipayan for demonstrating that DIN theory can engage protein-protein interaction in a multi-component organic reaction to drive precision engineering of proteins.
July 2023: Welcome Umasankar, Anirban, and Kashish to the team - all the best wishes for your project.
May 2023: Dr. Kamal Vats joins our team. He completed his PhD from IISc Bangalore with expertise in peptide chemistry. Welcome!
May 2023: Welcome summer interns - Gayathri H. P. (IIT Ropar) and Sanjana (IIT Kanpur).
May 2023: Welcome Aswini R. A. to our team for iPhD lab rotation.
January 2023: Neelesh will be moving to Hsu Lab at the Department of Chemistry, UT Austin for postdoctoral position in discovery chemoproteomics. Congratulations!
POSITIONS available
Postdoctoral fellow - Send a mail to vrai@iiserb.ac.in with your latest CV.
Ph.D. - Our group invites highly motivated candidates with a strong background in Organic Chemistry. Feel free to drop a mail to know more about our work.
The selected candidates get the opportunity to develop skills in organic synthesis that is extended to selective modification of proteins.
The candidates with a background in Biological Sciences can work with us by joining the research group of Dr. Ram K. Mishra, Department of Biological Sciences, IISER Bhopal.
Short term project/summer project - Three candidates per year
GRoup news (archive)
2022
December 2022: Vishal has been selected as the ACS Publications Editor-in-Chief search committee member.
November 2022: Congratulations, Vishal, for being selected by CRSI to represent India at Commonwealth Chemistry Meeting in Trinidad, May 23-25, 2023.
October 2022: Congratulations, Vishal, for being nominated as the NOST council member, 2022-2025.
October 2022: Congratulations, Kalyani and Neelesh, for your outstanding performance in the viva-voce examination! All the best for your future endeavors.
September 2022: Kalyani will be joining National Cancer Institute at NIH in January 2023. Congratulations, Kalyani!
August 2022: Ashish, Dwaipayan, and Sneha join our team for their PhD. Welcome and all the best!
July 2022: Congratulation Ankita for securing position at Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited. Best wishes for your future endeavours!
May 2022: Congratulations graduating MS students! All the best Lucky at Humboldt University of Berlin, Hari at University of Minnesota, and Sebin at Texas A&M University. Congratulations, Arya for securing all India rank 42 and JRF in CSIR-NET.
April 2022: Preeti joins our SERB-PACE team to accelerate the development of antibody conjugates for image-guided surgery and directed cancer chemotherapeutics. Welcome, Preeti!
April 2022: Srinivasa will be moving to Huber Lab at University of Oxford for his postdoctoral position at Nuffield Department of Medicine. Congratulations!
March 2022: Our team thanks SERB for their generous support to establish SERB-PACE (Precision Antibodies engineering CEnter). We look forward to accelerating the innovation and translation of biologics through our technologies for precision engineering of proteins.
March 2022: Tula is joining Chattisgarh State University as Assistant Professor. Congratulations!
March 2022: Tanu is joining University of Illinois for her next postdoc position. Congratulations!
March 2022: Surya won the MP Young Scientist Award 2022 (first prize). Congratulations!
January 2022: Tula and Mahesh joined hands to demonstrate a modular route to redefine the reactivity landscape and empower precision engineering of proteins. Congratulations!
2021
September 2021: Tanushree and Ankita join our team as postdoctoral fellows to accelerate the ADC technologies. Welcome and all the best wishes!
September 2021: Congratulations Ramesh for bagging the prestigious President's Gold Medal and Proficiency Medal for 2021.
June 2021: Congratulations Purushottam for your new position with Ronghu Wu at Georgia Tech. All the best for your chemical proteomics research.
June 2021: Congratulations Vishal for taking up the International Chemical Biology Society (ICBS) National Co-Chair position.
June 2021: Congratulations team LDM. Your work has gained social outreach in NDTV, Times of India, Economic Times, India Today, The Week, Outlook, Times Now News, News 24*7, Pioneer, NIE, NBT, LN, Hindustan, BioSpectrum, BioVoice, IndiaMedToday, Republic World, HTDS, Skill Outlook, and many others.
May 2021: Welcome Sakshi, Ananya, Sumedha, Shivam, Dev, and Sneha for the summer e-internship!
May 2021: Congratulations, Plabeltech, for the National Start-up Award 2021, by Technology Development Board, DST, GoI.
May 2021: Congratulations, team OBCL. The Indian patent for LDM technology is granted. More on the way.
April 2021: LDM technology - Congratulations, Datta, Kalyani, and other team members, for the breakthrough on the precision engineering of proteins with non-chemoselective electrophiles
March 2021: Thanks, SERB, for the Technology Translation Award (TETRA).
February 2021: Congratulations, Vishal, for the prestigious CDRI Award 2021 for Excellence in Drug Research.
February 2021: Congratulations, Datta, for your outstanding contributions. Best wishes for your research in the London Lab.
January 2021: Welcome to the group, Ragendu. All the best for your research journey.
2020
December 2020: Datta would be moving soon to join the group of Prof. Nir London at Weizmann Institute for his postdoctoral research. Congratulations, Datta!
October 2020: Congratulations, Datta, for SAI LIFE-NOST Best Thesis Award 2020, recognizing your remarkable contributions to the precision engineering of proteins.
October 2020: Gly-tag technology - Congratulations Purushottam, Unni, and other team members for your Chemical Science on "Single amino acid Gly-tag enables metal free protein purification".
October 2020: Vishal has been elected as Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), UK, under the "Leaders in the Field" scheme for contributions to the "Precision Engineering of Proteins".
October 2020: Congratulations, Mohan, for the prestigious Prime Minister's Research Fellowship (PMRF2020). We are looking forward to your research contributions in breaking the barriers of chemical technologies in precision therapeutics.
September 2020: Prabhanshu joined Kwong Lab at Vaccine Research Center, NIAID, NIH for his postdoctoral research. Congratulations! Looking forward to your remarkable contributions to Science.
August 2020: Vishal has been invited to serve as ACS Chemical Biology, Early Career Advisory Board Member. Congratulations!
August 2020: The recent article on "Chemical methods for modification of proteins" got selected for OBC Editor's collection. Thanks, Prof. Elizabeth Krenske. Congratulations! Neelesh, Rajib, and Mohan for doing a great job with this tutorial review. (Meet the authors)
August 2020: Welcome to the group, Subhradeep. All the best for your research journey.
August 2020: Congratulations, Dr. Dattatraya G. Rawale, for excellent performance in the viva-voce examination. All the best wishes for your future endeavors.
August 2020: Welcome to the group, Ramesh. All the best for your MS project.
July 2020: Congratulations Pranav on successfully completing your MS project. All the best wishes for your future endeavors.
July 2020: Congratulations Manpreet, Shounak, and Bishvanwesha for successfully completing your summer e-projects.
June 2020: Tutorial review for organic chemists on "Chemical methods for modification of proteins" by Neelesh, Mohan, and Rajib. Congratulations on contributing to the special issue on "Methodology Development for Protein Modifications" edited by Profs. Bernardes, Madder, and Nakamura.
May 2020: Welcome Shounak (IISER Mohali), Manpreet (Panjab University), and Bishvanwesha (IISER Kolkata), for your summer e-projects. The e-project involves the review of protein bioconjugation and training in research communication skills.
March 2020: LDM technology for Lys - Congratulations Datta, Srinivasa and other team members for your Angewandte Chemie on "Chemoselective and site-selective lysine-directed lysine modification enables single-site labeling of native proteins".
February 2020: Our project on protein bioconjugation technologies is rated "Excellent" by SERB, Govt. of India. Our team is thankful to SERB for their constant encouragement.
February 2020: Neelesh received the best oral presentation award at recently concluded sIPS2020 during Feb 20-21, 2020 at Madurai Kamraj University.
February 2020: LDM, GLY-TAG, and Plabeltech are now registered trademarks and will be used for protein labeling technologies.
February 2020: Srinivasa bags the prestigious Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship. Congratulations! Looking forward to your remarkable contributions to Science.
January 2020: DST Swarnajayanti Fellowship will support OBCL for the next five years. Thank you DST for putting faith in our research program (Press release: DST, Vigyan Prasar).
January 2020: Welcome Anamika and Kannagi to the group. All the best for your research endeavors!
January 2020: Mrityunjay bags Chemistry Block Fellowship from the Department of Chemistry at UC Irvine. Congratulations!
2019
December 2019: Welcome Swarna, Lucky, and Harinarayanan. All the best for your short-term projects.
November 2019: Thanks Christine and Shawn for your blog in "News and Views" on our Nature BME article.
October 2019: Congratulations Purushottam for the honour of SaiLife-NOST Best Thesis Award 2019 (Award function: XV-J-NOST 2019, University of Delhi, Oct 18-21, 2019).
September 2019: A collaborative effort of teams from Akamara Therapeutics, Harvard Medical School, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, IISER Kolkata, and IISER Bhopal has been accepted in Nature BME. Congratulations, Nimish, Mahesh, and team!
September 2019: Congratulations Datta, Kalyani, and Srinivasa for invited EJOC minireview on "Chemical methods for selective labeling of proteins".
September 2019: Mrityunjay starts his new innings at UC Irvine. All the best!
August 2019: Congratulations Dr. Rohith Singudas for excellent performance in the viva-voce examination. All the best with your postdoctoral research with Eyal!
August 2019: Welcome Mohan and Rajib to the group. All the best for your PhD!
July 2019: Congratulations! Rohith and Neelesh for your recent publication on MS Sensitivity Boosters.
July 2019: Congratulations! Aparna, Arjun, Aryabhata, Asmita, Sreelakshmi, Sumran, and Tiasha for your successful completion of summer internship. All the best for your future endeavors.
June 2019: The Gly-tag work features in the Editors' Highlights of Nature Communications. Thanks, Dr. Eckhoff.
June 2019: Our new patent covers "Chemoselective sensitivity booster and the process thereof". Congratulations, Rohith and Neelesh.
May 2019: Congratulations to Gly-tag team for their paper in Nature Communications.
May 2019: Congratulations Dr. P. N. Joshi for excellent performance in the viva-voce examination.
April 2019: Our new patent covers "N-terminus Gly-tag specific modification, capture, and release of protein enabling metal-free protein purification. Congratulations, team OBCL!
April 2019: Rohith becomes the fifth group member to submit his thesis. Congratulations! for your excellent performance in the open seminar.
March 2019: Mrityunjay would be soon moving to UC Irvine for his future research. Congratulations!
March 2019: Congratulations Mrityunajay for your success in the GATE examination (AIR 326) and graduate admissions in multiple departments.
March 2019: Congratulations Dr. L. Purushottam for excellent performance in the viva-voce examination.
February 2019: Datta received the "best poster award" at recently concluded Indian Peptide Symposium in BITS Pilani, Hyderabad. Congratulations!
January 2019: The LDM technology by Srinivasa and team is rated 'Exceptional' and highlighted in F1000. Thank you, Prof. Silverman for your recommendation.
January 2019: Pralhad's work got highlighted in F1000. Thank you, Prof. Silverman for your recommendation.
January 2019: Congratulations! Shivam for your success in CSIR-NET examination.
January 2019: Welcome, Surya. Looking forward to precision engineering of proteins in cellulo. Thanks, Ram for making it possible.
January 2019: Welcome to our new team member. Shivam joins the group for his Ph.D.
January 2019: All the best! Srinivasa, Mahesh, and Purushottam. Your scientific contributions would always be remembered. Looking forward to your success stories in the future.
January 2019: Srinivasa did an excellent job while heading the R&D of Plabeltech. He will soon join the group of Prof. Gonçalo Bernardes at University of Cambridge, UK. Congratulations!
January 2019: Purushottam would be moving soon to join the group of Prof. Danny Chou at University of Utah, USA. Congratulations!
January 2019: Mahesh would soon join the team of Prof. Steven Bloom at University of Kansas, USA. Congratulations!
Before 2018
December 2018: Congratulations Pralhad, for a successful open seminar.
December 2018: Pralhad demonstrated "Single-site labeling of histidine in proteins, on-demand reversibility, and traceless metal-free protein purification" in his recent publication. Congratulations!
December 2018: Our SERB project on "Chemical technologies directed towards synthesis of antibody-drug conjugates" is complete and has been graded excellent by the evaluation panel. Congratulations, OBCL!
December 2018: Conference season - participation in I-DEC (Dec 6-8, IISER Bhopal), FICS (Dec 6-8, IIT Guwahati), and INYAS-FoS (Dec 9-11, Hyderabad). Seven presentations in total. Good job, guys!
November 2018: Srinivasa and Datta demonstrated that "Aldehyde can switch chemoselectivity of electrophiles" in the protein labeling. Great job guys!
November 2018: The chemical technology developed by Srinivasa, Datta, and team was highlighted in the Alumni Newsletter of IISERB.
October 2018: Srinivasa, Datta, and their team published "Linchpin Directed Modification (LDM) platform" for precise engineering of proteins. Congratulations!
August 2018 - Congratulations Purushottam, for a successful open seminar.
August 2018 - Mahesh's work on chemical technology for synthesis of homogeneous antibody-drug conjugates garnered attention in Hindu, Indian Science Journal, Research Matters, India Science Wire, and SciSoup.
July 2018 - Congratulations Mahesh, for excellent performance in the viva-voce examination!
July 2018 - Congratulations Subhasri and Simran for the successful completion of your summer project.
May 2018 - Welcome Subhasri and Simran for the summer project.
April 2018 - Congratulations Dona, Unnikrishnan, and Lalkrishnan for your excellent performance in the MS thesis defence. All the best for your future endeavors.
March 2018 - Plabeltech Private Limited is incorporated at IICE, IISER Bhopal. Our chemical technologies can now be accessed through this company.
March 2018 - OBCL and SCIEX had a meeting to discuss the potential collaboration on MS sensitivity boosters.
March 2018 - OBCL and Invictus Oncology had a meeting in Delhi to discuss future goals.
December 2017 - Our group participated in second annual ACS Industry Symposium.
November 2017 - Purushottam and Neelesh discussed their work on "Single-site labeling of proteins enabled by stable hemiaminals" (O) and "Cysteine directs single-site labeling of native proteins" (P) at XIIIth J-NOST in BHU, Varanasi.
October 2017 - Congratulations Neelesh! for the best poster award at Interactions, IISER Bhopal.
October 2017 - Purushottam and Neelesh discussed their work on "Single-site labeling of proteins enabled by stable hemiaminals" (O) and "Cysteine directs single-site labeling of native proteins" (P) at Interactions in IISER Bhopal.
July 2017 - Our start-up on "Protein Labeling Technologies" won the BIRAC-BIG grant for translation of our IP to products.
July 2017 - Congratulations Srinivasa, Purushottam, and Mahesh! Your discoveries shaped our start-up on "Protein Labeling Technologies".
July 2017 - Welcome to our new Ph.D. student, Shashank Sancheti.
July 2017 - Welcome Lalkrishnan, Unnikrishnan, and Dona. All the best for your BS-MS project.
July 2017 - Goodbye Mrudula and Pranav. Great to have you this summer. All the best for your future endeavors.
May 2017 - Congratulations Srinivasa for excellent performance in the viva-voce examination!
April 2017 - Srinivasa submitted his thesis titled, "Single-site labeling of native proteins".
February 2017 - Mahesh and Purushottam published their work on "Site-selective labeling of native proteins by a multicomponent approach". Congratulations!
February 2017 - Srinivasa completed his open seminar on Feb 7, 2017. Congratulations!
January 2017 - Purushottam, Srinivasa, and Mahesh published their work on "Chemoselective and site-selective peptide and native protein modification enabled by aldehyde auto-oxidation". Congratulations!
December 2016 - The group filed a patent on "Hemiaminal-tag for protein labeling and purification". Congratulations Purushottam!
December 2016 - Vishal delivered an invited talk at preICOS Conference, IISER Bhopal on "Reactivity and selectivity in chemical modification of un-engineered proteins".
December 2016 - Srinivasa and Purushottam discussed their work on "Selectivity of organic reactions in protein modification" (P) and "Competition of α-amine and ε-amine in chemical modification of proteins" (P) at preICOS Conference, IISER Bhopal.
November 2016 - The group filed an international patent on "Multi-functional chemical agents for protein modification".
November 2016 - Mahesh and Datta discussed their work on "Chemo- and site-selective modification of native proteins using aldehyde auto-oxidation and multicomponent approaches" (O) and "Single-site labeling of native proteins" (P) at XIIth J-NOST in CDRI Lucknow.
October 2016 - Mahesh and Datta discussed their work on "Making a single residue react in the protein backbone" (O) and "Single-site histidine modification of native proteins" (P) at Interactions in IISER Bhopal.
September 2016 - The group filed another patent on "Site-selective protein labelling and synthesis of homogeneous protein conjugates". Great job Mahesh and Purushottam!
August 2016 - Welcome to our new Ph.D. student, Kalyani Thakur.
July 2016 - Congratulations Mrityunjay and Sruthy for successful completion of your summer project.
June 2016 - Welcome Mrityunjay and Sruthy to the group. All the best wishes for your summer project.
March 2016 - The group filed its first patent on "Multi-functional chemical agents for protein modification". Great job Srinivasa!
December 2015 - Pralhad, Purushottam and Nirmal developed a promiscuous protein based catalyst that demonstrates efficient nucleophilic biocatalysis in oligomeric state. Great job guys.
December 2015 - Pralhad and Purushottam presented their research work on "Development of methodologies for site-selective protein modification" (O) and "Chemoselective and site-selective formylation of peptides and proteins" (P) at J-NOST in NISER Bhubaneshwar.
November 2015 - OBCL and Invictus Oncology Pvt Ltd signed an MoU for addressing challenges related to antibody drug conjugates and directed therapeutics.
September 2015 - Pralhad, Purushottam and Datta presented their research work on "Nucleophilic biocatalysis in Morita-Baylis-Hillman reaction" (O), "Promiscuous catalysis by Lysozyme C assembly" (P) and "Chemoselective reagents for rapid labeling of peptides" (P) in Interactions 2015.
August 2015 - OBCL started a blog site to share concepts at the interface of organic chemistry and bioconjugate chemistry.
August 2015 - Welcome to the new group member, Tularam Sahu. Best wishes for your PhD!
July 2015 - Congratulations Pankaj and Cavya for successful completion of your summer project.
June 2015 - Research contribution: A communication on "Twisted amide electrophiles enable cyclic peptide sequencing" has appeared recently.
June 2015 - Vishal visited TIFR, Mumbai for an invited talk and scientific discussion.
May 2015 - Welcome Pankaj and Cavya to the group. Best wishes for your summer project!
January 2015 - Srinivasa presented his research on "Chemical methods for protein modification" at ISBOC-10, IISER Pune.
December 2014 - Rajesh has been selected for the position of QC officer at Indian Oil Corporation Limited. Many congratulations Rajesh!
November 2014 - Rohith, Srinivasa and Pralhad published their recent work on, "A Phthalimidation Protocol That Follows Protein Defined Parameters". Good job guys!
September 2014 - Congratulations Neelesh for UGC-JRF selection
August 2014 - Srinivasa, Mahesh and Rohith presented their research on "Development of tools for labeling of proteins" (P), "Organometallic complexes for protein modification" (P) and "Chemo- and site-selective protein modification by phthalimidation" (O) in Interactions 2014
August 2014 - Welcome to our new postdoc, Rajesh Paul
August 2014 - Welcome to our new Ph.D. student, Neelesh C Reddy
July 2014 - Recent group contribution: Review on "Small Ring Heterocycles in Multicomponent Reactions", see Chem. Rev. 2014, 114, 8323-8359.
June 2014 - Congratulations Himaja for completing your summer project. Best wishes for your future endeavors.
April 2014 - Congratulations to Prabhanshu Tripathi. He is moving to UFL next semester with Grinter Award.
March 2014 - OBCL set up moves one step ahead with LC-MS-prepLC.
Links
Positions available
PhD positions: 2 (Dec 2024)
Project positions: 2
(Mid 2025)
Postdoctoral fellow: 1 (May 2025)
(contact: vrai[at]iiserb.ac.in)