Prof. S.P Ray-Chaudhuri 75th Birthday Endowment Lectures

Prof. Sachi Prasad Ray-Chaudhuri, the first President of ISCB, was a doyen chromosome biologist in the country who pioneered research and teaching of animal genetics in India. Having being trained under the tutelage of Prof. H. J. Muller (N.L.) in Edinburgh, Prof. Ray-Chaudhuri initiated research in areas of radiation genetics and comparative cytogenetics in Calcutta University. In 1961 he moved to Varanasi to adorn the chair of the Head of the Department of Zoology of Banaras Hindu University. During his tenure as head of the department, his inspiring leadership modernized the Zoology Department of BHU, and catapulted it to the most dynamic department of animal sciences in the country. Besides his own research in various areas of genetics and cytogenetics, Prof. Ray-Chaudhuri actively encouraged and pursued development of other areas such as Physiology and Biochemistry, Reproduction Biology, Ecology in the department. A whole generation of students who worked under him not only did commendable work but succeeded in making dynamic schools of their own. His benign and caring support was not confined to his own Ph.D. students but to any one who came in contact with him. He had an abiding influence on all those who were even remotely associated with him. After his retirement from Banaras Hindu University in 1971, Prof. Ray-Chaudhuri went back to Calcutta University and continued to work until mid nineteen eighties till his age and ill health prevented him from active lab life. He breathed his last in the year 1994 at 87 years of age.

Indian Society of Cell Biology, most appropriately, created an endowment fund on his 75^th Birthday and created a lecture series in 1982.