Profile

Prof Rangappa has made novel and significant contributions to the Chemical Biology-Drug discovery program, Bio-organic and Medicinal Chemistry. His research is characterized by both novelty and innovation. Prof. K. S. Rangappa has developed more than 7000 synthetic small molecules from his laboratory and some of them have been demonstrated as exemplary compounds towards cancer with good growth inhibitory activity in preclinical cancer models. The chemical entities developed in his laboratory are being used as scaffolds in the world premier institutions for the development of drugs against various human ailments. Recently, two of his compounds namely DMBO and NPB have entered the market as standard inhibitors of growth factors and BAD protein respectively. DMBO and NPB compounds are being sold by American companies as standard inhibitors of pharmacologically important proteins. Similarly, he has discovered many pharmacological inhibitors of STAT3, NF-κB, TFF3, human methionyl tRNA synthetases which are constitutively expressed in various human cancers. Recently, he developed a COVID-19 self-detection kit and submitted it to ICMR for approval and public use. He has served as a Post-doctoral Fellow/Research Associate/Visiting Professor at several universities in Canada (1983-85), USA (1990-92), Germany (1995), Japan (1999-2000, May-July 2005), Korea (2002, 2014), Poland (April-May 2006), Russia (July 2013), Cambridge University, UK (Oct 2013), etc. He has been awarded the D.Sc. degree for independent research contribution (1998). He is an elected as Fellow of The Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC, UK), Fellow of National Academy of Sciences (FNASc, India), Fellow of the Biotech Research Society of India (FBRS, India), Fellow of Indian Science Congress (FISC, India), Fellow of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine (FINEM, India), Fellow of Karnataka State Science & Technology Academy (FKSTA) and Fellow of The World academy of Sciences (FTWAS). He has developed several national and international (Indo-Japan, Indo-French, Indo-Germany, Indo-Singapore, Indo-UK, Indo-US, Indo-Korea, Indo-South Africa, Indo-Russia, Indo-Israel, etc.) collaborative research programs with more than 300 scientists working across the globe. He has published over 560 research papers in national and international peer reviewed journals and presented more than 160 research papers in conferences. He holds 10 patents (international and national) in the area of medicinal chemistry for the discovery of small-molecule inhibitors of therapeutic targets. He has been credited with scientific citations over 12000 for his research contributions with an h-index of 58. He has guided 61 candidates for Ph.D. degrees and presently 04 students are working for the doctoral research, He has been ranked among the top 2% of World Scientists in the field of organic chemistry released by Stanford University, USA. He is a recipient of several prestigious national and international awards including Prof. Y. T. Thathachari prestigious research award for Science (2007), Sir C. V. Raman Young Scientist Award (2006) from Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology, Chemical Research Society of India (CRSI) Bronze Medal (2006) in Chemical Sciences by Chemical Research Society of India, Prestigious Dr. Raja Ramanna Award from Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology (2011), Global e-learning award (2012), Kempegowda International award for the contribution in the field of Education, Lifetime achievement award by Indian Society of Association Executives (2019), and “2020 Best Paper Award in Biochimie” Conferred by the Elsevier B.V., and French Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2022. He served as a Vice-Chancellor of the University of Mysore (2013-2017) and Karnataka State Open University (2009-2013). University of Mysore hosted 103rd Indian Science Congress and celebrated centenary year in 2016 under leadership. President, Vice-President, and Prime Minister of India took part in the celebrations. Ten Nobel Laureates and hundreds of foreign scientists also participated in 103rd Indian Science Congress and centenary celebrations. He served as a General President of 107th Indian Science Congress and UGC-BSR faculty fellow and member of the institutional body of five All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) of our country. He is one of the board of governors of the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Karnataka. ISEC is funded by the Indian Council of Social Science Research and the Government of Karnataka. The thrust of the institute is to integrate the social science research skills in initiating, complementing, participating and furthering the social, economic and political changes of the societies with an emphasis on equity and justice. He is the President of the Forum of Former Vice Chancellors of Karnataka in which all the former Vice Chancellors of Karnataka are the members of this body. This organization provides suggestion to the state government and assists in policymaking related to research and academics at the State of Karnataka. Currently Prof Rangappa is serving as a UNIVERSITY Distinguished Professor, CSIR-Emeritus Scientist and Asutosh Mookerjee Fellow at the University Mysore. Now, Prof. Rangappa is the Ambassador of Hokkaido University, Japan.