Dinakar Salunke PhD

Dinakar Mashnu Salunke is an immunologist and structural biologist. Presently, he is the Director of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) in New Delhi. Earlier he was the Executive Director of the newly established Regional Centre for Biotechnology (RCB), an institution jointly set up by the Department of Biotechnology (India) and UNESCO at Faridabad. He is the recipient of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology in the category of biological sciences (year 2000) and a Fellow of all major science academies in India. Salunke was born and brought up in Belgaum, Karnataka, India. He earned his B.Sc. in Physics, Mathematics, and Statistics (1976), and M.Sc. in Physics (1978) from Karnataka University, Dharwad. After completing of his M.Sc. with first-class distinction, he joined Prof. M. Vijayan for his Ph.D. degree at the Molecular Biophysics Unit, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He did his postdoctoral research at Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, United States (year 1985–88).