Raghavendra obtained his PhD in 1975 (Sri Venkateswara University). He has held a number of research, teaching and administrative positions at institutions including the Central Plantation Crops Research Inst., Sri Venkateswara Univ., and the Rubber Research Inst. of India. He is professor of plant sciences and JCBose National Fellow at the School of Life Sciences at the Univ. of Hyderabad. He has been awarded: Indian National Science Academy Young Scientist Medal; AP Academy of Sciences Young Scientist Award; UGC Career Award; National Academy of Agricultural Sciences Recognition Award; AP Scientist of the Year; and Indian National Science Academy Professor TS Sadasivan Lecture. His membership includes the Indian National Science Academy, National Academy of Sciences India, Indian Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and AP Akademi of Sciences.

Sukumar (PhD, 1985) is professor of ecology, Indian Institute of Science. His work originally focused on the behaviour and conservation biology of elephants, expanding later to tropical forest ecology and climate change. Sukumar is Fellow of: Indian Acad. of Sciences; Indian Natl. Science Academy; Natl. Acad. Sci. India. He has held visiting positions at Princeton Univ., Columbia Univ. and Kyoto Univ. He has contributed extensively to Indian government policy on nature conservation, and has been a member of the Indian Board for Wildlife and the Project Elephant Steering Committee. He was Chair, IUCN/SSC Asian Elephant Specialist Group (1997-2004). He is the author of four books and over 200 scientific papers, and the recipient of several awards, including: Presidential Award, Chicago Zoological Soc. (1992); Order of the Golden Ark (1997); Whitley Gold Award for Internatl. Nature Conservation (2003); Internatl. Cosmos Prize (2006); JC Bose Natl. Fellowship (2011). He contributed to the work of the Intergov. Panel on Climate Change that shared the Nobel Peace Prize (2007).

Chakrabarti is senior professor, Department of Biochemistry, and Bioinformatics Centre, Bose Institute, Kolkata. He obtained his PhD from the Indian Institute of Science (1981), did postdoc. research at ETH, Zürich, Purdue Univ., UCLA and Caltech, USA, then worked at the National Chemical Lab., Pune (1990-97). Finding patterns in sequence and structure and deriving the underlying factors stabilizing the native fold of proteins and macromolecular interactions have been the hallmark of Chakrabarti’s work, which spans biophysics and bioinformatics. He is also involved in structural studies on proteins from Vibrio cholera, and the understanding the biological activity of nanoparticles. He is a fellow of all 3 science academies of India, and recipient of the JC Bose Fellowship. He is the President (2013-16) of the Asian Crystallographic Association.

Sur is Newton Professor of Neuroscience and Director of the Simons Center for the Social Brain at MIT. He studies the cerebral cortex of the brain, and has discovered fundamental principles by which cortical circuits are wired during development and change during learning. He received his BTech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and his PhD from Vanderbilt University, Nashville. His awards include: Charles Judson Herrick Award, American Association of Anatomists; A.P. Sloan Fellowship; McKnight Neuroscience Development Award; Sigma Xi Distinguished Lectureship; Distinguished Alumnus Award, IIT, Kanpur; Distinguished Alumnus Award, Vanderbilt University. He has been elected to the Royal Society, UK; National Academy of Medicine, USA; American Academy of Arts and Sciences; National Academy of Sciences, India; Indian National Science Academy; Neurosciences Research Program, USA; and Rodin Academy, Sweden.

Kumar has a B.Tech. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur, and a PhD from Cornell University, both in Electrical Engineering. He was with Bell Laboratories, Holmdel, N.J., USA, for over 6 years. Since 1988 he has been with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, where he is a Professor, and also the Chair of the Electrical Sciences Division. From 1988 to 2003 he was the Coordinator at IISc of the Education and Research Network Project (ERNET), India's first wide-area packet switching network. He has been elected Fellow of the IEEE (the Insitution of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE), the Indian Academy of Sciences (IASc), and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). He received the IISc Alumni Award for Excellence in Engineering Research for 2008.

Tata obtained his BSc (hons.) from U. of Bombay, MSc at Indian Inst. of Science (IISc) Bangalore, and docteur ès-sciences at U. of Paris Sorbonne. He is snr. scientist emeritus at the Medical Research Council, UK; previously trustee, Oxford Intl. Biomedical Centre; sci. adviser Avesthagen, India; chairman, Royal Soc. Research Grants and Intl. Awards Schemes. Previously, he was: vis. prof. in biochemistry, King's College, London; vis. prof., UC Berkeley; Fogarty scholar, NIH, Bethesda; and head, Lab. Dev. Biochemistry, National Inst. of Medical Research, London. His awards include: Van Meter Prize; Colworth Medal; Medal, Soc. of Endrocrinology; Jubilee Medal, Indian Inst. of Science; Doctor h.c., Ecole Normale Superieure, France. He is a fellow of the Royal Society, London, Indian Natl. Science Acad. and Natl. Acad. of Science India, and Member, European Molecular Biology Organisation.

Gupta (PhD 1969, Agra U.), after serving as Director for over 10 years and DBT Distinguished Research Professor for 7 years at Central Drug Res. Inst., Lucknow, is now working as Dist. Prof., Inst. Bioinform. and Applied Biotech., Bangalore. He was previously: Postdoctoral fellow, Syntex Res. Centre; Res.Ass. and Vis. Scientist, MIT; Scientist, CDRI; and Director, Inst. of Microbial Tech., Chandigarh. His awards include: INSA Young Scientist Medal in Chem.; SS Bhatnagar Prize; Ranbaxy Rese. Foundation Award; Dr. Nitya Anand Endowment Lecture Award, INSA; FICCI Award in Life Sciences; Goyal Prize in Applied Sciences; and Om Prakash Bhasin Award in Biotech. and Biological Sciences. His membership includes: INSA; Indian Acad. of Sciences; NAS, India; and National Acad. of Medical Sciences, India. He has published 145 research papers in peer reviewed journals and filed 6 patents.

Narinder Mehra is the Vice President (international affairs) of the Indian National Science Academy, Hon Emeritus Scientist of the Indian Council of Medical Research, Former Dean (Res) and Founder Head Dept. of Transplant Immunology and Immunogenetics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. He is former Secretary General and Vice President of Federation of Immunological Societies of Asia Oceania (FIMSA) and Life member of Asia Pacific Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics Association (APHIA). He is council member, International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS) and International Histocompatibility association. His honors include India’s highest S.S. Bhatnagar award, Ranbaxy Science foundation award, Chevalier of the National Order of Merit (France), IROST Khwarizmi international award (Iran) and B.R. Ambedkar award for excellence in Research (ICMR). He is member Honoris Causa of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and Fellow of Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy and National Academy of Medical Sciences of India and holds Hon Fellowship of Royal College of Physicians (FRCP) of UK . He holds hon. professorship from four universities.

Tuteja (PhD 1982, DSc 2008, U. of Lucknow, India) is Prof. and dir., Amity Inst. of Microbial Tech., Amity U. (India). He has made significant contributions in crop improvement under adverse conditions using genetical and microbial approach, developing marker-free transgenic crops with stress tolerance. He was group leader and sen. scientist, Intl. Centre for Genetic Engg. and Biotech. (ICGEB), New Delhi, India; postdoc fellow, UCLA and NIH, USA. He is a fellow of FNASc., FNA, FASc., FNESA and FNAAS. His honours include: Genomic Pioneer Award; Best Scientist Award, Natl. Envl. Science Acad.; Vigyan Gaurav Samman Award, Council of Science and Tech. UP; and the Goyal Prize Award, Kurukshetra U.. He is editorial board member of Arch. Biochem. Biophys, Plant Physiol. Biochem., Plant Signaling and Behavior and The Open Plant Science J.. He has published +300 papers and edited 9 books.

Sharma was educated at the Universities of Rajputana (Jodhpur), Mumbai, and Cambridge. He obtained his BSc in chemical engineering (1958), MSc (tech.) by research (1960) and PhD (Cantab) in 1964. He is honorary Kothary research professor, JNCAR, and professor of eminence, Inst, of Chemical Technology, Mumbai. He was previously: professor (1964-97) and director (1989-97), Dept. of Chemical Technology, Univ. of Mumbai. His awards include: Om Prakash Bhasin; Padma Vibushan; FICCI Award in Science and Technology; JC Bose Memorial Lecture, Royal Society, London; Shatabdi Puraskar, Indian Science Congress. He is a fellow, Indian Academy of Sciences; INSA; Maharashtra Academy of Science; Royal Society, London; and hon. fellow, Natl. Academy of Sciences; foreign assoc., US Natl. Academy of Engineering; intl. fellow, Royal Academy of Engineering.