Eminent biologist Prof M Vijayan passes away

PTI, Apr 25, 2022, 9:43 AM IST

Image credit: The Hindu

Bengaluru: Leading structural biologist M Vijayan, who laid the foundations of protein crystallography in India, breathed his last in Bengaluru on Sunday.

Vijayan, a former president of the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), was 80.

”With profound sorrow, we inform the demise of Prof. M. Vijayan on the morning of 24th April 2022,” the Molecular Biophysics Unit at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, announced on Sunday.

”Prof Vijayan was involved in the determination of Insulin structure at Oxford University along with Dorothy Hodgkin and her legendary group. Dorothy rightly used to refer to him as ‘victory (translated from Vijayan) over Insulin’, one of the first proteins ever crystallized,” Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Director-General Shekhar Mande said on Twitter.

Mande recalled that after his return to India, undertaking protein structure-activity through #crystallography became the passion of Vijayan.

”Brick by brick he built facilities, gathered a group of people around him who believed that this could be done, persevered to the maximum, and made everyone proud by his immense contributions over the years. None of the insurmountable difficulties would ever deter him,” Mande said.

”He was a very eminent molecular biophysicist and played a prominent role as part of Dorothy Hodgkin’s team in the unravelling of the structure of insulin. Georgina Ferry Hodgkin’s biographer has described his role very well,” said senior Congress leader and Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology Jairam Ramesh.

Born on October 16, 1941, Vijayan earned his Masters degree in Science from Allahabad University where Rajendra Singh, who later went on to head the RSS, Murli Manohar Joshi, and Sri Krishna Joshi were among his teachers.

In his biography, Vijayan had written about being influenced by Sri Krishna Joshi, who later on became the CSIR Director General and also INSA president.

Vijayan had published more than 260 peer-reviewed scientific papers and guided 38 research students and 20 post-doctoral fellows.

Vijayan was honoured with the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in 1985 and the Padma Shri in 2004.