Prof. Chaitan Khosla has achieved a position of eminence in the frontier areas of chemistry and biosciences.

After graduating from IIT Bombay with a B.Tech in Chemical Engineering, he obtained a Ph.D from the California Institute of Technology in 1990. In 1992 he joined as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University, where he is Professor Department of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Biochemistry (by courtesy) at present.

Dr. Khosla’s work lies at the interface of protein chemistry and medicine and is leading to the discovery of new drugs to fight infections and diseases. His group at Stanford is involved in studying catalytic mechanisms and structure of enzymes used for protein synthesis. A consequence of insights obtained during the study is generation of new tools for biosynthesis. His laboratory has an ongoing project aimed at understanding the molecular basis for Celiac Sprue, and developing therapeutic approaches to treat the disease.

He has authored over 134 scientific publications and 16 patents. An IITB silver medalist, Dr. Khosla is the recipient of several awards including the Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry and the Pure Chemistry Award from the American Chemical Society, the Alan T. Waterman Award from the National Science Foundation, and a Distinguished Alumni Award from the California Institute of Technology. He is also a co-founder and co-chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of Kosan Biosciences, Inc., a public biotechnology company that discovers and develops new polyketide therapeutics. Dr. Khosla is also the president of the Celiac Sprue Research Foundation.