Professional

Being a Physicist, I have started my research on Computational Molecular Biophysics in 1989. I earned by PhD degree for the thesis entitled, "Prediction of secondary structure and stability of globular and membrane proteins: surrounding hydrophobicity models" from Bharathidasan University, India.

I gained my first Post Doctoral experience on DNA bending and protein-DNA interactions at International Cente for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), Italy. I was involved in the development of thermodynamic databases for proteins and protein-nucleic acid interactions, stability of proteins upon mutations and computer simulation of protein-DNA interactions during my subsequent postdoc at The Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN), Japan. Subsequently, I served as a Research Scientist and a Senior Research Scientist at Computational Biology Research Center, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan.

At present I am working as a Professor at the Department of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India. I am concentrating on the structural analysis and prediction of outer membrane proteins, prediction of solvent accessibility, protein folding rates, inter-residue interactions in protein folding, cation-pi interactions, protein-protein, protein-RNA and protein-DNA recognition, and thermodynamic databases. I have written a book on "Protein Bioinformatics: From Sequence to Function" and edited a book on "Recent Research Developments on Protein Folding, Stability and Design".

Personal

Born on 26 June 1967 at Thuckalay, Kanya Kumari district of Tamil Nadu in India . I completed my B.Sc and M.Sc in Physics at Christian College, Marthandam. I received my Ph.D at Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirapalli , India under the guidance of Professor P.K. Ponnuswamy. I continued my research at International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Trieste , Italy as a Post Doctoral Fellow under the supervision of Professor Sandor Pongor. I moved to RIKEN in July, 1997 and worked with Professor Akinori Sarai at the BioInfo Bank, RIKEN, Japan. At present I am working as a Senore Research Scientist at Molecular Function Team of Computational Biology Research Center (CBRC), National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan.

I have one brother and two sisters. They are all married and my brother's family live with my parents at my home town. I love them very much and visit them once a year (atleast).

I got married on 6 October 1999 with A. Mary Thangakani . My wife is a Post Graduate in Computer Applications (MCA). We have Three kids.

I am a born again Christian and interested in attending spiritual meetings. If you are interested please call at 043-275-9465 or mail to michael-gromiha@aist.go.jp