BSBE Faculty

Balaji Prakash

Professor

(on long leave)

Contact Information:
Email: bprakash[at]iitk.ac.in
Tel: (91) 512-259-4013
Fax: (91) 512-259-4010

Link to Lab Webpage

Academic Background:

Dr. Balaji Prakash did his Ph.D at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He then moved to Max-Planck Institute, Dortmund, Germany for post-doctoral studies, where he solved the structure of a unique GTP-binding protein. He joined the faculty of BSBE department in November, 2002.

Research Interests:

Using a combination of Bioinformatics, Structural Biology and Biochemistry, Dr Prakash tries to understand mechanisms involved in GTP hydrolysis by GTP binding proteins. He believes that an elucidation of GTP hydrolysis in a novel set of GTPases, will pave way to attempt Structure-based Drug Design on oncogenic Ras, an important GTPase involved in several fundamental cellular processes. His major focus areas are:

• Mechanisms involved in GTP hydrolysis by G-proteins: His group now identified a set of GTP binding proteins that have features similar to oncogenic Ras but yet can function efficiently in the cell. His aim is to understand 'how they function' so that one can hope to translate this knowledge to Oncogenic Ras.

• GTPase-RNA interactions: Using Structural Bioinformatics, his group shows that GTPases possessing a circular permutation in their primary sequence, form an interesting set of proteins where the hydrolysis of GTP would be coupled to RNA binding. Characterizing these will lead to a very basic understanding of how these proteins play newer roles in the translational machinery.