Vinod Bhakuni earned his BSc and MSc degrees from Lucknow University, after which he joined Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI), Lucknow, where he worked on synthesis and structural determination of phospholipids under the supervision of Dr CM Gupta. From 1989 to 1992 he worked at The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA, as a post-doctoral fellow. Subsequently he returned to India and joined the Molecular and Structural Biology Division of CDRI, Lucknow as a Scientist and headed the Division.

Academic and Research Achievements: Bhakuni started a protein chemistry laboratory at CDRI, Lucknow, where he initiated work on folding and stability of proteins. His research focused on understanding the role of electrostatic interactions in maintenance of functional activity and structural cooperativity in proteins. Role of cooperativity in design of inhibitors, drug molecules and of enzymes designated as drug targets of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, was explored by him. He published about 45 research articles and had one patent to his credit. He mentored 14 PhD students.

Other Contributions: Dr Bhakuni was a member of the Editorial Board of International Journal of Integrative Biology.

Awards and Honours: Dr Bhakuni received the CSIR Young Scientist Award (1996), National Bioscience Award (2002), Raman Research Fellowship (2003-04), SS Bhatnagar Prize (2006) and PB Rama Rao Award (2006). He was a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore and National Academy of Sciences (India), Allahabad.