Siddhartha Roy


Siddhartha Roy is an Indian Chemical and Structural biologist, biophysicist, former director of the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology and the former director of Bose Institute. Widely known for his studies on, Peptidomimetics, bacteriophage lambda and protein synthesis, he is an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy. In 1999, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, for his contributions to Biological sciences.

Early life, education and career

Roy was born in the Indian state of West Bengal.
He completed his schooling at Ballygunge Government High School, then obtained a first class honours degree in chemistry from Presidency College, Calcutta in 1974 and did his doctoral studies at the University of Delaware under the guidance of Prof. Roberta F. Colman to secure a PhD in 1981. His post-doctoral studies were at Brandeis University at the laboratory of Prof. Alfred Redfield and at the National Institutes of Health.
Returning to India in 1986, he joined Bose Institute, Kolkata as a senior lecturer in the department of biophysics. He served the Institute till 2004 holding positions of Reader and then Professor of Biophysics when he moved to the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology as its director. After completing 10 years as the director of IICB, he returned to Bose Institute in 2014 as a senior professor and dean of studies. While at IICB, he has served the nation in several different high-level capacities such as the founder-director-in-charge of the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, Kolkata, the cluster director of 11 Biological institutes of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, member of the governing body of the CSIR and as a visiting professor at Osaka University. He has served as the president of the West Bengal Academy of Science and Technology. He is the founder-president of the Chemical Biology Society of India. He currently serves as a member of the board of directors of the International . He also served as the director of Bose Institute during the critical Centenary year. In addition, Roy played the very crucial role as an advisory committee member to successfully conduct the 'International Conference on Genome Biology 2019' hosted by the School of Biological Sciences, Madurai Kamaraj University.

Research

Roy's researches during his stint in the US was on protein folding and nuclear magnetic resonance studies of DNA and those researches identified the first hydropathy model which helped in predicting the exteriors and interiors of proteins by analyzing sequence information. He is also reported to have performed the complete assignment of a nucleic acid imino proton spectra using Nuclear Overhauser effect, regio-specific isotope labeling of sugars in nucleic acids and working along with Ad Bax and R. H. Griffey, developed an indirect 2D-NMR detection method, all reported to be for the first time. Later focusing his attention on bacteriophage lambda, he studied the gene expression of the bacterial virus using its operator-repressor system. Through his collaborative work with Sankar Adhya in 1998, he elucidated the role of differential contact in the transcription regulation mechanism and demonstrated the theory in many genetic regulatory circuits. His current work is focused on peptide therapeutics and he holds patents for some of his work.
Roy has published his research work through a number of articles published in peer-reviewed journals and ResearchGate, an online repository of scientific papers, has listed 155 of them. He is the Co-author of "Chemical Biology of the Genome" published by Elsevier/AP. He is a joint editor of Subcellular Biochemistry, volume on Proteins: Structure, Function, and Engineering published by Plenum Press, New York, USA and Protein-Protein interaction Regulators published by Royal Society of Chemistry, UK. He has guided around 30 scholars in their doctoral studies. When the Chemical Biology Society of India was formed in 2013, he became its founder president and holds the position. He is a former president of the West Bengal Academy of Science and Technology and is its incumbent vice president.

Awards and honours

The Indian Academy of Sciences elected Roy as their fellow in 1996 and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 1999. A recipient of the Meritorious Service Award of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, he was elected by the Indian National Science Academy as a fellow in 2005. In 2007, he was elected as a fellow of the West Bengal Academy of Science and Technology and he received the J. C. Bose National Fellowship of the Science and Engineering Research Board as well as the Tata Innovation Fellowship of the Department of Biotechnology the same year. He was also a member of Guha Research Conference during the years 1992 and 2012. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, UK and has been elected a member of The World Academy of Sciences.

Books

  1. Gene Expression and its Regulation -- An Evolutionary Perspective by Siddhartha Roy. 2025. Published by Springer-Nature.
  2. Chemical Biology of the Genome by Siddhartha Roy & Tapas Kundu. 2021. Published by Elsevier/AP.
  3. Protein-Protein interaction Regulators, edited by Siddhartha Roy & Haian Fu. 2021. Published by Royal Society of Chemistry, UK
  4. Subcellular Biochemistry, Volume 24 on Proteins: Structure, Function, and Engineering, edited by B B Biswas & Siddhartha Roy. 1995. Published by Plenum Press, New York, USA.

Selected bibliography

  • DNA-Bound p53-DNA-Binding Domain Interconverts between Multiple Conformations: Implications for Partner Protein Recognition. Bhattacharjee, S., Mukherjee, S., and Roy, S.* J Phys Chem B, 125, 5832-5837.https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcb.1c03794
  • A peptide-based synthetic transcription factor selectively activates transcription in a mammalian cell. Roy, K., Mazumder, A., Ghosh, P., Naiya, G., Ghosh, B., & Roy, S.* Chem Commun. 54, 1611-1614.https://doi.org/10.1039/C7CC09279B
  • A Peptide-based Synthetic Transcription Factor Selectively Down-regulates the Proto-oncogene CFOS in Tumour Cells and Inhibits Proliferation. Chakraborty, M. and Roy, S.*  Chem Commun, 53, 376-379.https://doi.org/10.1039/C6CC08086C
  • Specific Sequence of a Beta-turn in Human La Protein May Contribute to Species Specificity of Hepatitis C Virus. Kumar, A., Manna, AK., Ray, U., Mullick, R., Basu, G., Das, S., & Roy, S.* J Virol, 88, 4319-27. https://doi.org/10.1128/jvi.00049-14
  • A Synthetic Peptide Mimic of l-Cro shows Sequence-Specific Binding in vitro and in vivo. Mazumder, A., Maiti, A., Roy, K., & Roy, S.* ACS Chem Biol, 7, 1084-94. https://doi.org/10.1021/cb200523n
  • Peptide-protein interactions suggest that acetylation of lysines 381 and 382 of p53 is important for positive coactivator 4/p53 interaction. Debnath, S., Chatterjee, S., Arif, M., Kundu, TK., & Roy, S.* J Biol Chem, 286, 25076-87.https://doi.org/10.1074/jbc.M110.205328
  • Differential recognition of phosphorylated transactivation domains of p53 by different p300 domains. Polley, S., Guha, S., Roy, NS., Kar, S., Sakaguch,i K., Chuman, Y., Swaminathan, V., Kundu, T., & Roy, S.* J Mol Biol, 376, 8-12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmb.2007.11.082
  • Switching DNA-binding specificity by unnatural amino acid substitution. Maiti, A., & Roy, S.* Nucleic Acids Res, 33, 5896-903. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gki899
  • Asynchronous basepair openings in transcription initiation: regulation by enhancing the rate limiting step. Roy, S., Lim, HM., & Adhya, S. EMBO J, 23, 869-75. https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.emboj.7600098
  • Fluorescence quenching methods to study protein-nucleic acid interaction. Roy, S.* Methods Enzymol, 379, 175-87. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0076-687979010-2
  • 2-Aminopurine as a probe for Basepair opening during Transcription Initiation. Roy, S.* Methods Enzymol, 370, 568-76. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0076-687970048-2
  • Glutamate counteracts the denaturing effect of urea through its effect on the denatured state. Mandal, AK., Samaddar, S., Banerjee, R., Lahiri, S., Bhattacharyya, A., & Roy, S.*   J Biol Chem, 278, 36077-84. https://doi.org/10.1074/jbc.M211207200
  • Solvation Change and Ion release During Aminoacylation by Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases. Bannerjee, R., Mandal, AK., Shah, R., Guha, S., Samaddar, S., Bhattacharyya, A., & Roy, S.* Nucleic Acids Res, 31, 6035-42. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkg779
  • Aib-based peptide backbone as scaffolds for helical peptide mimics. Banerjee, R., Basu, G.,* Roy, S.,* & Chene, P. J Pept Res, 60, 88-94.https://doi.org/10.1034/j.1399-3011.2002.201005.x
  • DnaK-sigma32 interaction is temperature dependent: Implication for the mechanism of heat-shock response. Chattopadhyay, R., & Roy, S.* J Biol Chem, 277, 33641-7. https://doi.org/10.1074/jbc.M203197200
  • Effect of phosphorylation on the structure and fold of transactivation domain of p53. Kar S., Sakaguchi, K., Shimohigashi, Y., Samaddar, S., Banerjee, R., Basu, G., Swaminathan, V., Kundu, TK., & Roy, S.* J Biol Chem, 277, 15579-85. https://doi.org/10.1074/jbc.M106915200
  • Effect of osmolytes and chaperone-like action of P-protein on folding of nucleocapsid protein of Chandipura virus. Majumder A, Basak S, Raha T, Chowdhury SP, Chattopadhyay D, Roy S.* J Biol Chem. 276, 30948-55.https://doi.org/10.1074/jbc.M011705200
  • A "master" in base unpairing during isomerization of a promoter upon RNA polymerase binding. Lim, HM., Lee, HJ., Roy, S., & Adhya, S. Proc Natl Acad Sci ', 98, 14849-52. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.261517398
  • Damage-mediated phosphorylation of human p53 threonine 18 through a cascade mediated by a casein 1-like kinase. Effect on Mdm2 binding. Sakaguchi, K., Saito, S., Higashimoto, Y., Roy, S., Anderson, CW., & Appella, E. J Biol Chem, 275, 9278-83. https://doi.org/10.1074/jbc.275.13.9278
  • Interaction of Gal repressor with inducer and operator: induction of gal transcription from repressor-bound DNA. Chatterjee, S., Zhou, YN., Roy, S., & Adhya, S. Proc Natl Acad Sci, 94 2957-2962. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.94.7.2957
  • A fluorescence anisotropy study of tetramer-dimer equilibrium of l-repressor and its implications for function. Banik, U., Mandal, N.C., Bhattacharyya, B., & Roy, S.* J Biol Chem, 268, 3938-3943. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0021-925853562-6
  • An operator induced conformational change of C-terminal domain of l-repressor. Saha, R., Banik, U., Mandal, N.C., Bhattacharyya, B., & Roy, S.* J Biol Chem, 267, 5862-5867. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0021-925842633-615N-guanosine-labeled oligonucleotide as probe for protein-nucleic acid interaction in the major groove. Massefski, W., Redfield, AG., Das Sarma, U., Bannerji, A., & Roy, S.* J Am Chem Soc, 112, 5350-5351. https://doi.org/10.1021/ja00169a052
  • Solid state deuterium NMR study of thymidine. Base rigidity and ribose ring flexibility in deoxynucleosides. Hiyama, Y., Roy, S., Cohen, JS. & Torchia, DA. J Am Chem Soc, 111, 8609-8613. https://doi.org/10.1021/ja00205a008
  • New enzymic synthesis of 2'-deoxynucleoside-2',2'-d2 and the determination of sugar ring flexibility by solid-state deuterium NMR. Roy, S.,* Hiyama, Y., Torchia, DA., & Cohen, JS.  J Am Chem Soc, 108, 1675-1678. https://doi.org/10.1021/ja00267a043
  •  NMR study of slowly exchanging protons in yeast tRNAasp. Figueroa, N., Keith, G., Leroy, J.L., Plateau, P., Roy, S., & Gueron, M. Proc Natl Acad Sci, 80, 4330-4333. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.80.14.4330
  • Nuclear Overhauser effect study of yeast tRNAvalI:Evidence of uridine-Pseudouridine base pairing. Schejter, E., Roy, S., Sanchez, V., & Redfield, AG. Nucleic Acids Res, 10, 8297-8305. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/10.24.8297
  • Procedure for C2 deuteration of nucleic acids and determination of AY 31 pseudouridine conformation by nuclear overhauser  effect. Roy, S., Papastavros, M.Z., & Redfield, AG. Nucleic Acids Res, 10, 8341-8349. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/10.24.8341
  • Roy, S., & Redfield, AG. Nuclear Overhauser effect study and assignment of D stem and reverse hoogsteen base pair proton of yeast tRNAasp. Nucleic Acids Res, 9, 7073-7083. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/9.24.7073
  • Hydrophobic basis of packing in globular proteins. Rose, GD. & Roy, S. Proc Natl Acad Sci,' 77, 4643-4647. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.77.8.4643

Patents

The list is incomplete.
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