biology

Joyoti Basu

Joyoti Basu is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Joyoti Basu rather than just read about it. In short: Joyoti Basu (born 17 December 1957) is an Indian biochemist, cell biologist and a senior professor at the Bose Institute. Known for her studies on the membrane structure of red blood cells, Basu is an elected fellow of all three major Indian science academies, namely the National Academy of Sciences, India, the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy, as well as the Indian Society for Chem…

Key takeaways

Joyoti Basu belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Joyoti Basu to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Joyoti Basu from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Joyoti Basu (born 17 December 1957) is an Indian biochemist, cell biologist and a senior professor at the Bose Institute. Known for her studies on the membrane structure of red blood cells, Basu is an elected fellow of all three major Indian science academies, namely the National Academy of Sciences, India, the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy, as well as the Indian Society for Chemical Biology. The Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India awarded her the National Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science awards, for her contributions to biosciences in 2002.

Early life and education

Born on 17 December 1957 in the Indian state of West Bengal, Joyoti Basu did her undergraduate studies at the Presidency College, Kolkata and after completing the BSc honors in chemistry, she obtained an MSc from the University of Calcutta. Her doctoral research was at the Bose Institute, Kolkata under the guidance of Parul Chakrabarti, which earned her a PhD from Calcutta University. She did her post-doctoral work at the laboratory of Jean-Marie Ghuysen at the University of Liège working on mycobacterial cell division and mycobacterial peptidoglycan-biosynthesizing enzymes. She joined Bose Institute in 1991 as a faculty member at the department of Chemistry.

Controversy Basu's alleged scientific misconduct has been noted widely and has even been covered in media. She is widely alleged to have duplicated images leading to retraction of two papers, correction of another two, and, many alleged instances of misconduct listed on Pubpeer. Basu has retracted a few of her papers. This includes an article published in The Journal of Immunology.

Research work

Basu's research is focused on the cellular and molecular biology of mycobacteria. During the initial stages of her career, she worked on the membrane structure of red blood cells and her research is reported to have assisted in widening the understanding of apoptosis of nucleated mammalian cells and the physiology of the red cell that lacked a cell nucleus. Her association with her mentor, Parul Chakrabarti, during her doctoral research days, precipitated the studies of the biosynthetic pathways of fatty acids in relation to cell wall building and the functions of penicillin-binding proteins. She is known to be the first scientist to propose that the removal of the aged or oxidatively stressed red blood cells from the circulatory system causes cellular death. Later she moved on to the biological study of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a pathogenic bacteria causing tuberculosis, with regard to its host-pathogen interaction and her studies revealed the mechanisms of macrophage apoptosis as well as the relationship between host cell signaling and innate immune response. In 2007, the team led by Basu and her college mate from the Presidency College, Manikuntala Kundu, were successful in identifying a protein in Mycobacterium tuberculosis which caused weakening of the immune system of the host. They found that the protein, named Early Secreted Antigen 6, which bound themselves on Toll-like receptor 2 of the host, hindered the production of cytokines, a type of protein which helped the immune system to fight the tuberculosis bacteria. The discovery also has reported importance in the therapeutics of diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. The achievement was later published as an article, Direct extracellular interaction between the early secreted antigen ESAT-6 of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and TLR2 inhibits TLR signaling in macrophages in Nature Immunology journal in 2007. Her studies have been documented by way of a number of articles and ResearchGate, an online repository of scientific articles has listed 77 of them. Besides, she has mentored several research scholars in their doctoral studies. Basu is a member of the executive committee of the Indian Society of Cell Biology and is a former treasurer of the society. She is credited with contributing to the establishment of a program on Systems Biology at the Bose Institute. She is also a former associate editor of the Journal of Immunology and is an academic editor of PLOS One. Basu retired in June 2018. Basu resides on Madhab Chatterjee Street in Kolkata.

Awards and honors Basu received the Young Scientist Medal of the Indian National Science Academy in 1989. The Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India awarded her the National Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science awards in 2002. The National Academy of Sciences, India elected her as a fellow the same year. She received the elected fellowships of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Academy of Sciences in 2006 and 2009 respectively. She is a recipient of the J.C. Bose National Fellowship in 2017.

Selected bibliography Kumawat, Kuldeep; Pathak, Sushil Kumar; Spetz, Anna-Lena; Kundu, Manikuntala; Basu, Joyoti (April 2010). "Exogenous Nef Is an Inhibitor of Mycobacterium tuberculosis-induced Tumor Necrosis Factor-α Production and Macrophage Apoptosis". Journal of Biological Chemistry. 285 (17): 12629–12637. doi:10.1074/jbc.m109.073320. PMC 4705387. PMID 20068037. Sureka, Kamakshi; Sanyal, Sourav; Basu, Joyoti; Kundu, Manikuntala (December 2009). "Polyphosphate kinase 2: a modulator of nucleoside diphosphate kinase activity in mycobacteria". Molecular Microbiology. 74 (5): 1187–1197. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2958.2009.06925.x. PMID 19843229. Basu, Sanchita; Pathak, Shresh; Pathak, Sushil Kumar; Bhattacharyya, Asima; Banerjee, Anirban; Kundu, Manikuntala; Basu, Joyoti (December 2007). "Mycobacterium avium-induced matrix metalloproteinase-9 expression occurs in a cyclooxygenase-2-dependent manner and involves phosphorylation- and acetylation-dependent chromatin modification: Mycobacterium avium-induced MMP-9 expression". Cellular Microbiology. 9 (12): 2804–2816. doi:10.1111/j.1462-5822.2007.00997.x. PMID 17590163.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Joyoti Basu

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Joyoti Basu claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Joyoti Basu before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Joyoti Basu ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Joyoti Basu

In research: Joyoti Basu appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Joyoti Basu in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Joyoti Basu is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1957 births, 20th-century Indian biologists, 20th-century Indian women scientists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Joyoti Basu outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Joyoti Basu in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Joyoti Basu means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Joyoti Basu out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Joyoti Basu in simple terms?

Why does Joyoti Basu matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Joyoti Basu?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Joyoti Basu.