Indian researchers have received first Merck Young Scientist Award 2019 in Chemical Sciences recently at Bangalore instituted by Merck, a science and technology company operating worldwide. Merck Young Scientist Award is given to researchers with less than ten years of experience with expertise in solving some of the toughest problems in chemical sciences.
Dr Sakya Singha Sen, a senior scientist from National Chemical Laboratory (CSIR-NCL), Pune has been awarded for doing remarkable research in chemical science. Sen and his research team specialize in main group chemistry and involves in the synthesis of compounds with main group element and their catalytic application.
All the catalysts currently used mostly belong to precious metals platinum, palladium, iridium etc. These are very expensive and their abundance in the earth is very less. They can’t be used for longer period as there are chances that these may finish soon. “My group is trying to do the same chemical transformation with Earth’s abundance metals like silicon and calcium. Silicon is second most Earth’s abundance metal and calcium is fifth most so can we do the same transformation with these elements instead of those precious metals” said Dr Sen.
The other recipient of the award are Dr Debojyoti Chakraborty, Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi (IGIB); Dr Dipyaman Ganguly, CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata (CSIR-IICB); Dr Siddhesh S Kamat, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune; Dr Mahendran K .R, Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology, Thiruvananthapuram (RGCB) and; Dr Basker Sundararaju, Indian Institute of Technology, (IIT) Kanpur.
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The winners received cash award of INR 2,00,000 and Travel Award of INR 1,50,000 each.
The Jury included eminent scientists from top Indian Academic institutes with Dr Shahid Jameel, Chief Executive Officer, The Welcome Trust / DBT India Alliance, as the Chair and, Dr Anurag Agrawal, Director Institute of Genomics & Integrative Biology, Prof Apurva Sarin, Director, Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Dr Davinder Gill, Chief Executive Officer Hilleman Laboratories and Dr Radha Rangarajan, CEO, Co-Founder, Vitas Pharma, as Co-Chairs.
Merck is a global company working on breakthrough solutions and technologies in more than sixty countries. It has been functional for more than 350 years, found by Friedrich Jacob Merck in Darmstadt, Germany in 1668. It invested a total of € 2.2 billion in research and development. (India Science Wire).
