Sanjay Kapoor's Biography

Sanjay Kapoor, Associate Professor, University of Delhi

Dr. Sanjay Kapoor is an Associate Professor at University of Delhi South Campus. He obtained his doctorate in Chloroplast Molecular Biology from Department of Botany, University of Delhi in 1992 before moving to Nagoya, Japan, where he worked at the Center for Gene Research on the interaction of plastid promoters and RNA polymerases. Dr. Kapoor extended his work to eukaryotic gene regulation at the National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences (NIAS), Tsukuba Science City, Japan.
In 2003, he joined Delhi University South Campus as Reader and nucleated a group that focuses on identification and functional validation of key regulators of reproductive development and heterosis. He is among the pioneers to make use of micro-array platform in India and his work on rice transcriptome has been published in top plant biology journals such as Plant Cell, Plant Journal, Journal Of Experimental Botany, Plant Physiology etc. His group has worked extensively on the role of MADS box transcription factors and components of RNAi machinery. One of the MADS gene, MADS29, has been found to play important role in grain filling during seed development in a cereal-specific manner by controlling plant hormone homeostasis and starch metabolism. He has taken up the challenge of understanding molecular basis of heterosis and identified novel components involved in energy balance in the hybrid vis-à-vis parents. Besides contributing to basic plant biology concepts, his work has great value to help improve yield, induce male-sterility for hybrid seed production and predict potential of parents of hybrids. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences India and has more than 60 publications in journals of high impact in plant sciences and a few patents to his credit.
His hobbies include photography and graphics designing; the new purple DU logo designed by Dr. Kapoor has been designated as the official logo of the University of Delhi, since 2014. He has also designed the DPMB and his lab websites, which he is maintaining for the past 8 years.