Rate My Professor S. Mahalingam

Professor S. Mahalingam serves as Professor in the Department of Biotechnology at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. He earned his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from Madurai Kamaraj University. His professional appointments include Professor at the Department of Biotechnology, IIT Madras since May 2010; Associate Professor at the same department from May 2007 to May 2010; Staff Scientist-V at the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad from May 2005 to May 2007; Staff Scientist-IV at the same centre from October 2000 to April 2005; Research Associate at the University of Alabama at Birmingham from 1997 to 2000; Research Associate at the University of Pennsylvania from 1996 to 1997; Postdoctoral Fellow at Thomas Jefferson University from 1993 to 1995; and Graduate student at Madurai Kamaraj University from 1988 to 1992. He also held visiting scientist positions at the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology in Singapore in 2003 and at the University of Pittsburgh in 2002.

Professor Mahalingam’s research focuses on molecular pathogenesis of HIV/AIDS, including virus-host interactions, mechanisms of HIV-mediated cell cycle arrest, and the role of integrase in early viral infection steps, as well as regulation of nucleo-cytoplasmic transport proteins and identification of protein nuclear and nucleolar localization signals. His work extends to cancer biology, biomarker discovery, preclinical models, and genomics. He received the Outstanding Research Investigator award from the Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India in 2009. He has served as a member of the National Advisory Committee of the Department of Science and Technology (2010–2013), expert member of the Medical Biotechnology Task Force of the Department of Biotechnology (2009–2012), Chairman of the Board of Studies in Biotechnology at the University of Madras (2009–2012), elected member of the Guha Research Conference (2007–2010), and elected member of the Immunology Forum of India (2007–2010). He holds US patents related to cellular receptors for HIV-1 Vpr and functional fragments of HIV-1 Vpr protein. He has contributed as an editorial member of the International Journal of Virology and as an ad-hoc reviewer for Virology and the Journal of Virology. Professor Mahalingam has organized multiple international conferences on HIV pathogenesis and cancer biology at IIT Madras and other venues. Selected publications include works on GNL1 in cancer cell proliferation (2020), humoral immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 (2021), RASSF10/NPM/RNF2 in gastric cancer (2021), optomicrofluidic detection of cancer cells (2023), and TLR-mediated structures in bacterial survival (2024).