M. Vijayan
Mamannamana Vijayan was an Indian structural biologist.
He was awarded Padma Shri by the President of India in 2004. He was the President of the Indian National Science Academy from 2007 to 2010. He was DAE Homi Bhabha Professor at the Indian Institute of Science.
Education
Vijayan graduated from Sree Kerala Varma College, Thrissur and obtained his Masters of Science degree in 1963 from Allahabad University. Thereafter, he received his Doctorate degree in X-ray crystallography from the Indian Institute of Science in 1967. During 1968–71, he was a post-doctoral fellow in Professor Dorothy Hodgkin's research group at University of Oxford. During that period, he studied x-ray diffraction data for insulin crystals.Contribution in structural biology
Vijayan and his colleagues have worked on four of the five classes of plant lectins. His studies, for the first time, have demonstrated the occurrence of "open" quaternary structures in multimeric proteins particularly in legume lectins and lectins with β-prism I fold. His work established β-prism I fold as a canonical fold of lectins. Structures elucidated by Vijayan showed that lectin adopt a variety of strategies for generating ligand specificity. In addition to the plants, Vijayan has extensively worked on lectins from mycobacteria and archea, thus demonstrating the occurrence of lectins in all the three domains of life.Using structural biology approach he addressed the role of hydration in the mobility of proteins structures. His studies have shown that the structures of lysozyme and ribonuclease A undergo water-mediated transformations. His work on other systems, involving β-lactoglobulin and hemoglobin, as well, provided insights on role of hydration shell structure and function of proteins.
Vijayan has published more than 260 peer reviewed research articles and has guided 38 research students and 20 postdoctoral fellows.
Professional life
After completing his postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford, he returned to India in 1971 and joined the Molecular Biophyiscs Unit at the Indian Institute of Science. He has served in various capacities such as Professor, Chairman of Molecular Biophysics Unit, Chairman of Division of Biological Sciences among others. During 2000–2004 he was Associate Director of IISc. He has continued to work at the Institute as a DBT Distinguished Biotechnologist and subsequently as a DAE Homi Bhabha Professor.Vijayan's course on fundamentals in crystallography was extremely popular with students at the Indian Institute of Science. His unique approach of interlacing historical developments in the field with conceptual aspects made the course vibrant and energetic.