Atul Kumar has recently been awarded Har-Gobind Khorana Innovative Young Biotechnologist Award by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) of the Indian Government. This is one of India’s most prestigious awards given to early-career scientists pursuing frontier areas of biotechnology. Atul has also been awarded a DBT Ramalingaswami Re-entry Fellowship. This 5-year fellowship is awarded to promising Indian researchers who having worked overseas in biotechnology or Life Sciences and then take up research positions in India.

Atul trained undertook postdoctoral research in the MRC-PPU initially in Helen Walden’s lab solving several crystal structures of the Parkinson’s associated ubiquitin E3 ligase, Parkin, that defined how Parkin is activated in response to phosphorylation mediated by its upstream kinase PINK1. He then continued postdoc studies in Miratul Muqit’s lab in collaboration with Daan van Aalten where he solved the first crystal structure of an insect orthologue of PINK1 that provided insights into how PINK1 recognises Parkin and ubiquitin and how disease mutations disrupt this process.

Atul is currently an Assistant Professor in Structural Biology at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Bhopal (IISERB). His laboratory is focused on understanding how post-translational modifications alter the fate of proteins linked to a variety of human diseases and these awards will enable Atul to develop key reagents such as synthetic antibodies and recruit staff to his newly formed independent laboratory.