Prof. Ramasamy Pitchappan, a Fellow of the National Academy of Medical Sciences and a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences is a pioneer in Immunology of Infectious diseases, Transplantation Immunology and Human Genomics in India. He served as the Co-ordinator, School of Biological sciences (2005-6) and Professor of Immunology (1986-2006) at Madurai Kamaraj University. During this period, he also served as Director, Educational Media research centre, and organized many Science Exhibitions in collaboration with All India Radio and Science Congress. He undertook many International Collaborations with The European commission, The Welcome Trust – University of Oxford, ISERM - France, all studying Mycobacterioses. Post-retirement from MKU in 2006-13 he under took a global “The Genographic project” funded by National Geographic, IBM and Ted Wait Family foundation, USA, tracing the migration of man through the globe. This centre was one of the twelve centres around the world and only one from India dedicated for this study. Pitchappan also served as the Director - Research at Chettinad Academy of Research and Education, Chennai, from 2010 to 2016 Feb: Here he established a state of the art research facilities for Human Genomics, Microbial Genomics, Nano and Biotechnology - thus interfacing bio-medical research evaluating disease risks and environmental pollution monitoring. Pitchappan has synthesized the available evidences and proposed 'Lotus & Cactus' Model a, invoking immunogenome in infectious disease susceptibility in tribal populations of India, and Indian Council of Medical Research has empanelled him as Adjunct Professor, attached with RMRC-ICMR, Port Blair, Andaman Nicobar Islands, India. Of late he has been invited by Govt Tamil Nadu, Dept Archaeology to be the advisor to their aDNA programme. And he has been appointed as the Honorary Visiting Professor, by his almamator, Madurai Kamaraj university to coordinate the aDNA lab and its programme with Govt. Tamil Nadu.

Pitchappan’s credentials along with handful of International collaborators from Oxford, London, Cambridge, Stanford, Washington, Estonia, India and many others goes to the discovery of the genome predisposing for Leprosy (Nature Genetics 2001b), Immunogenetic dictum in Tuberculosis, First migration of Man to India and peopling of Tamil Nadu (Wells et al, 2001, Arunkumar et al 2012), HLA immunogenetics of HIV susceptibility in India, Population diversity and infectious disease susceptibility in TB & psoriasis, HLA and KIR polymorphisms and their implications in disease susceptibility. His seminal paper on Leprosy Genome Scan was instrumental in starting Human Genomics teaching and research programme, at Madurai Kamaraj University. While the seminal discovery published in Nature Genetics in 2001, along with Oxford Group changed the whole concept of infectious diseases from pathogen to host i.e., host is equally or more important in the clinical manifestation of the infection and “not all the infected develop the disease”, as his recent review depicts a. His exciting and providential findings, the discovery of ‘Virumandi’, the descendant of the first migrant Man Homo sapiens to India, west of Madurai, published in PNAS 2001d (with Oxford Group), and the ensuing documentary Journey of Man 2002e, National Geographic Channel, were awesome. The Story of India 2007 BBC documentaries and his SUN TV interview 2013 on “Peopling of Tamil Nadu” have been the land marks in his scientific journey, taking science to common man.

With his great conviction in science, wisdom of learning and stringent training by his mentors Dausset Nobel, 1980, Muthukkaruppan & Samuel Raj, “not to compromise in science”, he aims at India centric research and requisite technologies, the science very much required for developing countries - a holistic approach to study diseases and to deliver in science. His 100+ impact making papers in reputed journals and reviews and chapters in renowned books successfully employed appropriate state of the art DNA tools - Whole Genome Scans, Expression profiling, Sequencing and Computational approaches in his studies. He has participated and chaired sessions in many International conferences, UNESCO conference, Elsevier’s Emerging infectious diseases, Histocompatibility workshops setting standards for HLA tissue matching services and Indian science. He is a pioneer in the field of Transplantation matching services in India, as early as 1981 offering ~3000 renal kidney transplantation matching and ~200 Bone marrow tissue matching services from Madurai Kamaraj university, a model the country requires. He is a member and advisor of various governmental bodies, funding and regulatory authorities, reviewer of journal articles. He continues his science and science education at various levels as on date. The next leap has come in the way in the form of aDNA and is working on both ancient and modern DNAs to tell the story of India.