Prof. Ullas Kolthur-Seetharam

Prof. Ullas Kolthur is a Professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research with labs in TIFR Mumbai and TIFR-Hyderabad, and currently Director of CDFD. He obtained his M.Sc from Bangalore University and Ph.D. from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He joined TIFR in 2008 after a postdoctoral stint at IGBMC, Strasbourg-France.

Prof. Kolthur has built an outstanding globally competitive program on Molecular Physiology, to study mechanisms that govern organismal physiology/survival. He has made fundamental discoveries in cell/tissue autonomous/non-autonomous mechanisms that establish organ-system hierarchy and aging, epigenomics, mitochondrial functions and unravelling nuclear-mitochondrial cross-talk via retrograde-signaling.

Besides being recognized by several awards and fellowships, he also serves on editorial boards of JBC, MCB, and FASEB. He has received several awards and recognitions including the INSERM Foreign Research Fellow (France) and Swarnajayanti Award (DST India). He is an elected member of IASc, INSA, and NASI. He is also a recipient of the prestigious J. C. Bose Fellowship.

He has contributed extensively on several public health efforts including during COVID where he conducted one of the largest serosurveys in the country, which were highlighted by several national and international media. As one of the chief architects of a national consortium on malnutrition, NCDs and aging, he has established Advanced-Research-Unit-on-Metabolism-Development-and-Aging at TIFR (ARUMDA) and National-Analytical-Facility-for-Nutrition-and-Metabolism-Research. This has brought together basic biologists and clinical researchers on scale for the first in the country. He also collaborates with ISRO on Gaganyaan-I. ARUMDA and collaborations with ISRO are aimed at translating basic discoveries and contributing to national missions.