SKM at Pusa

 
Swarup Mukherjee moved on to the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Pusa, New Delhi from Pantnagar to do his Masters degree in Genetics. Typically, SKM threw himself into student activities in Pusa which really had no tradition of cultural and student activities because of the limited number of students on the campus as well as because all the students were Post-graduate students who tended to focus on their academic and research activities. SKM broke that mould by helping to organise a very active student group who turned this otherwise sleepy campus into a hive of cultural activity.

He was certainly not one to forget his Pantnagar roots and even organised a Pantnagar alumni group in Pusa. This group formed the nucleus of all the student activities on the Pusa campus during that time.

Academically, SKM thrived in Pusa - he worked at the high technology Nuclear Research Laboratory (NRL) under the guidance of Senior Radiation Geneticist Dr. S. Bhaskaran for his Masters Research project on 'Studies on Division Synchrony in Cultured Plant Cells' At Pusa SKM was greatly influenced by the work of eminent scientists like Dr. M.S. Swaminathan (who also worked in Pusa for long years) Dr. V.L.Chopra and Dr. Sushil Kumar. Click here to view SKM's Laboratory logbook. This logbook provides a nice insight into SKM's scientific thinking and his ability to laugh at his own mistakes.

After his Masters program SKM registered at IARI for his Ph.D in Genetics under Prof. V.L.Chopra and worked on 'Studies on Isolation, Culture and Fusion of Protoplasts from Diverse Plant Species'

After Pusa SKM spent a short while at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad before moving to the USA for Post-doctoral research in the Laboratory of Dr. Clarence (Bud) Ryan at the Institute for Research in Biological Chemistry at the Pullman campus of the Washington State University.