Sampa Das obtained her BSc from Bankura Christian College, West Bengal and got her MSc degree from Burdwan University. She did her PhD on 'Meiotic development of yeast' from Bose Institute, Kolkata. Later on, she switched over to the study of the basic biology of Agrobacterium mediated plant transformation. In 1991, she joined as Lecturer at the Bose Institute, Kolkata and pursued her research in the area of her interest.

Academic and Research Achievements: Sampa Das has purified a number of mannose binding plant lectins and investigated their efficacy on survivability and fecundity of a range of plant-phloem-sap-sucking insects. The coding sequence of one of the identified lectins had been cloned and expressed in rice, mustard, chickpea and tobacco. She found the transgenic plants to be resistant to target insect pests. Receptor proteins, interacting with such lectins, were purified by her from brush border membrane vesicles of affected insect guts.

Other Contributions: Sampa Das has served as Coordinator of Integrated MSc-PhD Programme in Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology. She has  been coordinating the Institutional Plant Biology Programme  at Bose Institute since 2006 tll date.