Arup K Chakraborty, the Robert T Haslam professor of chemical engineering, and professor of chemistry, and biological engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a 2006 recipient of the prestigious National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award.
He is the first engineer as well as the first Indian-American and South Asian to receive the award since its inception.
Now in its third year, the Pioneer Award is a key component of the ONIH Roadmap for Medical Research. The program supports exceptionally creative scientists who take highly innovative approaches to major challenges in biomedical research.
The monetary portion of the award carries $500,000 each for five years for the recipient's research. Chakraborty 'will combine the application of theoretical methods rooted in statistical physics and engineering with experiments to determine principles governing the emergence of autoimmune diseases,' according to the NIH.
Chakraborty told rediff.com that the award 'will allow my research group to work without worries about resources. This, in turn, will enable us to pursue high-risk research that could potentially lead to big pay-offs'.
Elias A Zerhouni, director, National Institutes of Health, presented 13 recipients of the 2006 honor with awards at the second annual NIH Director's Pioneer Award Symposium.
Chakraborty received his B Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and his PhD in chemical engineering at the University of Delaware. After postdoctoral studies at the University of Minnesota, he joined the faculty at the University of California at Berkeley in December 1988.
He served as the Warren and Katherine Schlinger distinguished professor and chair of chemical engineering, professor of chemistry, and professor of biophysics at Berkeley. He was also head of theoretical and computational biology at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In September 2005, Chakraborty moved to MIT.
More information on the Pioneer Award is available at https://nihro-admap.nih.gov/pioneer
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