Thechief scientist of Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Dr.Manjula Reddy won the Infosys Prize for Life Sciences for a ground-breakingstudy that provides a unique insight into the process of the structure andsynthesis of the bacterial cell wall which is fundamental to the growth anddivision of cells of bacteria which help in understanding the role ofantibiotics.
Theaward contains a gold medal, a citation and a sum of Rs. 70.95 lakhs.
Bacteriacan grow and divide once every 20 minutes in a resource-rich environment and toachieve this, they have to rapidly build their cell walls to make two cellsfrom one.
It was for a long time that scientists believed that the cell wall needs to be broken in a controlled manner to allow a new cell wall to be built. Knowledge of what makes this possible has remained elusive.
Itwas Dr. Reddy's team who became the first one to identify the enzymes thatcarry out controlled cleavage of the cell walls. Her work led to anunderstanding of the mechanisms that regulate this fundamental step.
Dr.Reddy's work has opened up an avenue for targeting the initial steps of cellwall synthesis, the citation said.
