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Dr Anirban Basu\'s pre-doctoral studies were at School of Life Sciences, Viswa Bharati University, Santiniketan, doctoral work at CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata and post-doctoral work at Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, Hershey, Pennsylvania. Dr. Basu joined National Brain Research Center in 2004. Since then he has been working on understanding how neurotropic viruses cause abnormality in brain function and development. The major emphasis of his research is directed towards discovering therapeutic strategies against neuro-inflammatory and neuro-degenerative disorders. So far his work has not only highlighted the importance of neuro-immune response in regulating viral infection of the brain, but his work has been instrumental in filling the void needed to bridge the gap between translational and basic research centering infection of the brain.
Academic and Research Achievements
Dr. Basu has long been interested in curing diseases of the nervous system. His current research is focused on identifying the role of microglia and neural stem/progenitor cells in the healthy and diseased central nervous system. The group of people who currently work with him is testing strategies to develop disease modifying therapy by abrogating inflammation in CNS disorders. Besides studying fundamental aspects of virus induced neuropathology Dr Basu always keen to do translational research to develop newer generation of therapy for Japanese Encephalitis and other neurotropic viruses. Based upon pre-clinical study undertaken in Dr Basu\'s laboratory at National Brain Research Center, a Phase II clinical trial has been completed at King George Medical University (KGMU), Lucknow, where minocycline has been used as a therapy for Japanese Encephalitis patients and the patients with Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES).It has been observed in this trial that Minocycline has some beneficial effect in patients especially in those patients who survive the initial days in hospital. These findings could form the basis for planning a larger study and possibly including minocycline in the management of AES and JE. So far, he has trained seven Masters Students, eleven PhD students and nine Post-Doctoral-Fellows and numerous short term and long term research trainees in his lab.
Other Contributions
Dr Basu sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of Neurochemistry (handling editor), and Journal of Neuroinflammation.He is also an editorial advisory board member of F1000 Research. Earlier he has served as an editorial board member of Scientific Reports, PLoS One, and Metabolic Brain Disease. He has also served as a faculty member in the Faculty of 1000 in the section Neurological Disorders. He is the recipient of F1000 Faculty Member of the Year Award for the Faculty of Neurological Disorders for the year 2012, 2013, and 2016. This award recognize Faculty Members who have made the most significant contribution to the F1000 service over the past year, as judged by their editorial team. At present, Dr Basu is co-section Head for the Infectious Diseases of the Nervous System Section in F1000 (which forms part of the Neurological Disorders Faculty).
Awards and Honours
Several National Awards from different bodies, both federal and corporate house has recognize Dr Basu’s scientific accomplishments. He is the recipient of National Bioscience Award for Career Development (2010) from the Dept. of Biotechnology, Vasvik Industrial Research Award (2011), Dr. J.B.Srivastav Oration Award (2011) from ICMR, Rajib Goyal Prize (2012), NASI-Reliance Industries Platinum Jubilee Award (2013), Tata Innovation Fellowship (2015-2020), from the Dept. of Biotechnology, Senior Scientist Oration Award (2015),from the Indian Immunology Society, Sreenivasaya Memorial Award (2017) of Society of Biological Chemist (India), Basanti Devi Amir Chand Prize (2017) from ICMR, and Prof S S Katiyar Endowment Lecture (2018) of The Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA). Dr Basu is also an elected Fellow of all three major National Academy of Sciences in India. In 2019, he has been elected to Fellowship in the American Academy of Microbiology (AAM). The AAM is the honorific leadership group within the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), the world\'s oldest and largest life science organization. |
