SWEDISH SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES NETWORK

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Department of Biochemistry and Structural Biology, Center for Molecular Protein Science (CMPS), Lund University

Postal address: CMPS, Lund University, Box 124, SE–221 00 Lund, Sweden
Visiting address: Kemicentrum, Getingevägen 60
Web page: http://www.cmps.lu.se/biostruct/
Web page CMPS: http://www.cmps.lu.se/

Contact person: Professor Emeritus Anders Liljas, phone: +46 (0)247 10730. Personal web page.

The Department of Biochemistry and Structural Biology was created in 2010 after the merger of the Department of Biochemistry and the Department of Molecular Biophysics. The focus of research at the new Department is within some major areas of modern biochemistry and molecular biology. These include membrane protein structure and function; enzyme structure and function; molecular interactions and molecular assemblies; bio-electrochemistry; RNA, DNA and viruses; structural biology of enzymes and large macromolecular assemblies.

South Asia related research

For many years, Prof. Anders Liljas has carried out research work in collaboration with Asian researchers, and frequently lectured at Asian universities, mainly in China and Japan but also in India. In January 2011 he went for a lecturing tour to universities and research institutions at DhakaUniversity in Bangladesh; Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics in Kolkata; University of Mumbai; in Bangalore and Thirvananthapuram in India, giving a total of nine lectures. The visit was finacially supported by the Swedish Royal Physiography Society(Kungliga Fysiografiska sällskapet).
He also spent some time as a guest researcher at Kerala University. There he visited the Centre for Bioinformatics, a newly established unit which looks for international contacts and guest lecturers. He was very impressed by the Technopark in Trivandrum with 27 000 employees, mostly programmers developing software for all sorts of devices. Prof. Liljas met also Kerala's Minister of Education, MA Baby.
Besides, Prof. Liljas is a collaborator to World Scientific, a leading international publisher in medicine, science and technolog, published from Singapore. He is the chief editor of a new series of books within the field of Structural Biology.

Three Visiting Scientists from India have recently worked at the department in Lund. They are Dr. Saraboji Kadhirvel from Kerala; Dr. Tejas Kulkarni; and Dr. Sreekanth Rajan.

Previously, Dr. Suparna Sanyal worked at the department. She is now Associate Professor in Molecular Biology at the Department of Cell & Molecular Biology, Biomedical Center (BMC), Uppsala University.

Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window Programme scholarship programme

A large number of Indian students, PhD candidates, post-docs and academic staff has come to Lund University during the academic year 2009-10 and 2010-11, as scholarship holders through the Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window mobility programme Lot 15, coordinated by Lund University. This programme was announced in 2008, and out of a total mobility of 320 persons, 53 Indian students, researchers and academic staff were selected to come specically to Lund University. More information about the EMECW programme lot 15 (from 2009 renamed to be one out of four programmes under the mobility lot 13).

One Indian researcher was selected by the EMECW lot 15 consortium to stay at the Dept. of Molecular Biophysics, Lund University. Dr. Tejas Kulkarni comes from the University of Pune. He pursued his PhD in Biochemistry, his doctoral work involved isolation, purification and characterization of a proteinaceous trypsin inhibitor from an edible plant source. Dr. Kulkarni has also studied other biological applications of this inhibitor in terms of anti-cancer and anti-HIV studies in vitro.
At Lund University, he will work as a post-doc researcher. His research project deals with ribonucleotide reductase class II. He will try to crystallize this protein and study its structure.