New Delhi [India], April 29 (ANI): Secretary of Department of Biotechnology Rajesh S Gokhale on Friday was given additional charge of the post of Director-General, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)-cum-Secretary, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.
Gokhale will handle the new responsibility from April 30 to the appointment of a regular incumbent or until further orders.
Born in 1967, Gokhale is an Indian chemical biologist. He obtained his PhD from IISc and Postdoctoral studies from Stanford University, USA. After he moved back to India, Gokhale joined the National Institute of Immunology (NII), Delhi as faculty. From 2009 to 2016, he was Director of the CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (CSIR-IGIB), Delhi.
Appointments Committee of the Cabinet approved the assignment of the additional charge of the post of Director-General, CSIR-cum-Secretary, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research to Dr Rajesh S Gokhale, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology upon the superannuation of Dr Shekhar C Mande on April 30, 2022, reads a Ministry of Personnel order.
One of India’s leading experts in DNA fingerprinting and diagnostics, Mande assumed the charge of the Director-General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and Secretary of the Department of Scientific and Research on October 16, 2018.
Mande oversaw the launch of the Indian Human Microbiome Initiative in the Northeast. In 2005, he was awarded the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology – the most prestigious science award in India – in the category of Biological Sciences.
He has been honoured with several other prestigious awards including the BM Birla Young Scientist Award in 1999, and Wellcome Trust International Senior Fellow 2003-08. (ANI)