Winners of India’s top science award announced, no women on the list

• His role in understanding biofilm-induced infections involving cellulose.
• Biofilms are 3D structures of multiple microorganisms (different bacterial colonies or single types of cells in a group), adhering to the surface.
• Mycobacterium tuberculosis forms biofilms that host drug-tolerant bacteria.
• Kumar’s lab found that cellulose is a key component of these biofilms, holding mycobacterial cells together in these biofilms.

• His role in ascribing functions to phosphatases in regulating cellular protein-sorting pathways.
• Phosphatases are enzymes that remove a phosphate group from a protein and protein sorting is a mechanism through which proteins are transported to their appropriate destinations in the cell or outside it to carry out their functions.

• The synthesis of biologically important heterocyclic and carbocyclic compounds.
• Heterocyclic compounds and carbocyclic compounds are classes of organic compounds.
• Heterocycles are used in many biological fields, due to their activity in multiple illnesses.

• His role in preparing value-added materials by transforming organic molecules.
• His work could find applications in the agrochemical and pharmaceutical industries.

• His work in the Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean and Planetary Sciences field. He examined the role of anthropogenic and natural factors on hydrological extremes and water resources in India.
• His 2021 study concluded that a roughly 11 per cent decline in the summer monsoon (June–September) during 1951-2016, severe and frequent droughts (2009, 2014, 2015), and groundwater pumping for irrigation have contributed to groundwater depletion in the Ganga basin.

• His work in the area of seismic design and mitigation of seismic effects on buildings and bridges.

• His contribution to the fundamental understanding of methane recovery from marine gas hydrates.
• Marine gas hydrates are ice-like substances known to house huge reserves of methane gas and are being considered as an energy resource.
• They naturally occur on the seafloor and in subsurface sediments in water depths of 300 metres and beyond.

9. Neeraj Kayal from Microsoft Research Lab India

• Awarded the SSB prize for Mathematics.

• His work on autoimmunity and metaflammation.
• Autoimmunity occurs when the immune system attacks the body’s own cells and tissues.
• Metaimflammation is chronic low-grade inflammation associated with obesity induced by alterations in metabolism.

• Das has contributed to the understanding of electric and thermoelectrical properties of strongly interacting 2-D atomically thin materials.
• Atomically thin materials with thicknesses in the atomic scale (typically  less than 5 nanometres) can be used in rechargeable metal-ion batteries, metal-sulphur batteries and metal-air batteries.

• His research on coherent interactions of neutrinos (they have no charge but some mass) in dense astrophysical environments and the nature of dark matter.