Gautam Radhakrishna Desiraju
Encyclopedia
Telugu language
Telugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu...
: గౌతం రాధాకృష్ణ దేశిరాజు) (born August 21, 1952) is an Indian chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
who works in the Solid State and Structural Chemistry Unit of the Indian Institute of Science
Indian Institute of Science
Indian Institute of Science is a research institution of higher learning located in Bangalore, India. It was established in 1909.-History:After a chance meeting between Jamsetji N...
, Bangalore. He works in the area of supramolecular chemistry
Supramolecular chemistry
Supramolecular chemistry refers to the area of chemistry beyond the molecules and focuses on the chemical systems made up of a discrete number of assembled molecular subunits or components...
and crystal engineering
Crystal engineering
Crystal engineering is the design and synthesis of molecular solid-state structures with desired properties, based on an understanding and exploitation of intermolecular interactions. The two main strategies currently in use for crystal engineering are based on hydrogen bonding and coordination...
. Desiraju has played a major role in the development of crystal engineering for nearly three decades. He, among others, has been responsible in recent times for the acceptance of the theme of weak hydrogen bonding in structural and supramolecular chemistry. His books on crystal engineering (1989) and on the weak hydrogen bond
Hydrogen bond
A hydrogen bond is the attractive interaction of a hydrogen atom with an electronegative atom, such as nitrogen, oxygen or fluorine, that comes from another molecule or chemical group. The hydrogen must be covalently bonded to another electronegative atom to create the bond...
in structural chemistry and biology (1999) are especially notable. He has co-authored a textbook in crystal engineering (2011). He is one of the most highly cited Indian chemists and has been recognised by a number of awards such as the Alexander von Humboldt
Alexander von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt was a German naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt...
Forschungspreis and the TWAS award in Chemistry. He was elected President of the International Union of Crystallography
International Union of Crystallography
The International Union of Crystallography is a member of the International Council for Science and exists to serve the world community of crystallographers....
for the triennium 2011-2014.
Biography
Gautam Desiraju was born 21 August 1952 in ChennaiChennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, formerly Madras. Desiraju obtained his B.Sc.
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...
(1972) from St. Xavier's College, Bombay and Ph.D.
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
(1976) from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
where he worked under the supervision of David Y. Curtin and Iain C. Paul. He worked between 1976 and 1978 in the Research Laboratories of Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, NY. From 1978 to 1979 he was a research fellow in the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He joined the University of Hyderabad
University of Hyderabad
The University of Hyderabad is a post-graduate teaching and research institute in India. It was established by an act of the Parliament in 1974 as a Central University. The university also offers courses under distance learning programs...
in 1979 as a lecturer and was promoted as reader in 1984 and professor in 1990. He spent a year (1988–1989) in the CR&D department of DuPont
DuPont
E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company , commonly referred to as DuPont, is an American chemical company that was founded in July 1802 as a gunpowder mill by Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. DuPont was the world's third largest chemical company based on market capitalization and ninth based on revenue in 2009...
in Wilmington as a visiting scientist. After 30 years in the University of Hyderabad
University of Hyderabad
The University of Hyderabad is a post-graduate teaching and research institute in India. It was established by an act of the Parliament in 1974 as a Central University. The university also offers courses under distance learning programs...
, he joined the Indian Institute of Science
Indian Institute of Science
Indian Institute of Science is a research institution of higher learning located in Bangalore, India. It was established in 1909.-History:After a chance meeting between Jamsetji N...
in Bangalore. He is a member of the editorial advisory board of Angewandte Chemie
Angewandte Chemie
Angewandte Chemie is a weekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that covers all aspects of chemistry. Its impact factor was 12.730 in 2010, the highest value for a chemistry-specific journal that publishes original research...
. He is the president of the International Union of Crystallography
International Union of Crystallography
The International Union of Crystallography is a member of the International Council for Science and exists to serve the world community of crystallographers....
http://www.iucr.org/. He was the chair of the first Gordon Research Conference
Gordon Research Conferences
Gordon Research Conferences are international scientific conferences organized by a non-profit organization of the same name. The conference topics cover frontier research in the biological, chemical, and physical sciences, and their related technologies. The conferences have been held since...
in Crystal Engineering, which was held in 2010.
Major research contributions
Desiraju's major contribution to the subject of crystal engineering has been the development of the concept of the supramolecular synthon, which is a small sub-structural unit that is an adequate enough representation of the entire crystal structure of a molecular solid. The major problem in crystal engineering is that the prediction of a crystal structure from a molecular structure is very difficult, and not easily derivable from functional groups. Identification of supramolecular synthons simplifies this otherwise intractable problem so that some progress may be made in the design of a particular crystal structure. His review on this subject in Angewandte Chemie in 1995 now has more than 2000 citations and is a major landmark in the area. The supramolecular synthon concept is now widely used by crystal engineers notably in the design of pharmaceutical co-crystals, which are important from scientific and commercial viewpoints. Crystal engineering is effectively like supramolecular synthesis in the solid state, and there is a direct analogy between the supramolecular synthon of Desiraju and the molecular synthonSynthon
A synthon is a concept in retrosynthetic analysis. It is defined as a structural unit within a molecule which is related to a possible synthetic operation. The term was coined by E.J. Corey...
that was proposed for organic synthesis by E. J. Corey.
Desiraju's second major contribution has been to recognise that weakly activated groups like the C-H group can act as donors of hydrogen bonds in molecular and biomolecular systems. These weak hydrogen bonds had been discussed sporadically since the 1930s, but it was only after the 1980s that the idea of a weakly activated group forming hydrogen bonds gained acceptance in the chemical community. Desiraju was among the few structural chemists (some others include Leslie Leiserowitz and Thomas Steiner) who argued in those early days that the C-H...O and other weak interactions have a hydrogen bond character.
Desiraju has authored more than 325 publications, and in addition to the three books on crystal engineering and hydrogen bonding mentioned above, he has edited three multi-author books on these topics in structural chemistry. He has guided the Ph. D work of more than 30 students over the past 30 years.
General writing
Desiraju has authored several commentaries on science, the evolution of chemistry as a subject, emergence and complexity, and research habits and practices in various cultures. More recently he has written articles about the state of science education and research in India,http://www.hinduonnet.com/2007/02/19/stories/2007021902651000.htm where he has identified problems and suggested solutions in situations that are, in part, expected in a country that is rooted in the traditional but yet aspires for the contemporary.ISI Ratings
Each of his two authored books has more than 1500 cites each. His 1995 review in Angewandte Chemie has been cited more than 2000 times. Five of his >325 publications have been cited 500 or more times, 12 over 200 and 27 over 100. He has an h-indexH-index
The h-index is an index that attempts to measure both the productivity and impact of the published work of a scientist or scholar. The index is based on the set of the scientist's most cited papers and the number of citations that they have received in other publications...
of 56 and this makes him one of the most highly cited scientists in India.
Research Keywords
supramolecular chemistrySupramolecular chemistry
Supramolecular chemistry refers to the area of chemistry beyond the molecules and focuses on the chemical systems made up of a discrete number of assembled molecular subunits or components...
, crystal engineering
Crystal engineering
Crystal engineering is the design and synthesis of molecular solid-state structures with desired properties, based on an understanding and exploitation of intermolecular interactions. The two main strategies currently in use for crystal engineering are based on hydrogen bonding and coordination...
, hydrogen bond
Hydrogen bond
A hydrogen bond is the attractive interaction of a hydrogen atom with an electronegative atom, such as nitrogen, oxygen or fluorine, that comes from another molecule or chemical group. The hydrogen must be covalently bonded to another electronegative atom to create the bond...
, intermolecular interactions, crystal structure
Crystal structure
In mineralogy and crystallography, crystal structure is a unique arrangement of atoms or molecules in a crystalline liquid or solid. A crystal structure is composed of a pattern, a set of atoms arranged in a particular way, and a lattice exhibiting long-range order and symmetry...
s, X-ray crystallography
X-ray crystallography
X-ray crystallography is a method of determining the arrangement of atoms within a crystal, in which a beam of X-rays strikes a crystal and causes the beam of light to spread into many specific directions. From the angles and intensities of these diffracted beams, a crystallographer can produce a...