Hyderabad: Professor Basuthkar Jagadeeshwar Rao, Senior Professor, Chair of Biology, Dean-Faculty, at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, has taken charge as the Vice Chancellor of the University of Hyderabad (UoH) on Monday.
The Union education ministry, on Friday, appointed Prof Basuthkar as the new vice-chancellor of UoH. His appointment is for a period of 5 years or up to the age of 70 years whichever is earlier.
Prof Rao has been selected among two hundred candidates. The appointment of the new VC- prof Basuthkar comes almost one-and-half months after professor Appa Rao Podile was relieved from his duties.
Prof Rao was prior to the IISER posting, senior professor and chair-biology for several years at TIFR, Mumbai and successfully headed the programmes of mechanism of genome dynamics and cellular adaptations laboratory at TIFR.
He was born in March 13, 1956, awarded national science talent award (NCERT) with sixteen rank in India, first in AP (then United AP), graduated with a BSc from Nizam College and an MSc from Osmania University, Hyderabad, winning University Gold Medals in both. He then obtained his PhD from Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore, in the domain of Biochemistry. He then went on to do his postdoctoral work at Yale Medical School, serving as a research scientist for seven years. On his return to India, he worked at TIFR for several years.
