President, Indian National Science Academy

Member, IAC Board

Mamannamana Vijayan was born on 16 October, 1941 at Trichur (Kerala) He obtained his Ph.D. degree in 1967 from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. During 1968-71, he was a post doctoral fellow in Professor Dorothy Hodgkin’s research group at Oxford, which determined the three-dimensional structure of insulin. The work at Oxford facilitated his transition from physics to structural biology.

After his return to India in 1971, he has all along been at the Indian Institute of Science; was the Chairman of the Molecular Biophysics Unit (1985-92), Chairman of the Division of Biological Sciences (1993-2000) and the Associate Director of the Institute (2000-2004), currently Honorary Professor. He pioneered biological macromolecular crystallography in the country. His personal research has been on structural studies involving lectins, TB and other mycobacterial proteins, protein hydration and mobility, and supramolecular association of amino acids and peptides with emphasis on its relevance to chemical evolution and origin of life. He has supervised 38 Ph.D. students and 20 postdoctoral fellows.

He has been the President of the Indian Biophysical Society and the founder President of the Indian Crystallographic Association. He worked in several Commissions and Councils of the International Unions of Crystallography and Pure & Applied Biophysics and has been the President of the Asian Crystallographic Association.

Prof. Vijayan is a fellow of the three science academies of India i.e. INSA, IASc, NASc and the TWAS. The honours received by him include: SS Bhatnagar Prize; GN Ramachandran Medal; FICCI Award; Ranbaxy Research Award; Om Prakash Bhasin Award; KS Krishnan Memorial Lecture Award; Padma Shri.