Balaji Prakash (born 1968) is an Indian structural biologist, biochemist and the Associate Dean of Sciences & Professor, Biological and Life Sciences, at the School of Arts and Sciences, Ahmedabad University, since July 2020. Prior to this he served as senior principal scientist and the head of the department of molecular nutrition of the Central Food Technological Research Institute. Known for elucidating the structure of a unique GTP-binding protein, Prakash is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India and was a senior research fellow of The Wellcome Trust, UK. The Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India awarded him the National Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to biosciences, in 2009.
Prakash's research focus is on enzyme catalysis, with special interest in the enzyme family composed of GTPases, kinases and sugar nucleotidyltransferases, as well as the development of peptides for food industry.[5] During his post-doctoral work at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology, he elucidated the structure of a GTP-binding protein.[4] At CFTRI, he has worked on molecular nutrition and the development of nutraceuticals and has developed a technology titled Microbes based printing for fabrication of electronic circuits for which he holds the patent; another of his invention, A novel device for crystallizing proteins and protein complexes or other biological macromolecules, is being prepared for patent submission.[3] His studies have been documented by way of a number of articles[7][note 1] and ResearchGate, an online repository of scientific articles has listed 55 of them.[8] Besides, he has delivered invited speeches at seminars including the 2nd Indo-American Frontiers of Science Symposium held at Irvine, California in 2006 and was a senior research fellow of the Wellcome Trust in 2004.[5]
Vishweshwaraiah, Yashavanth L.; Prakash, Balaji; Gowda, Lalitha R. (2018). "Expression profiling of the Dolichos lablab lectin during germination and development of the seed". Plant Physiology and Biochemistry. 124: 10–19. doi:10.1016/j.plaphy.2017.12.040. PMID29324242.
Bais, Vaibhav Singh; Mohapatra, Balaram; Ahamad, Nadim; Boggaram, Sanjana; Verma, Sandeep; Prakash, Balaji (2018). "Investigating the inhibitory potential of 2-Aminopurine metal complexes against serine/threonine protein kinases from Mycobacterium tuberculosis". Tuberculosis. 108: 47–55. doi:10.1016/j.tube.2017.10.005. PMID29523327.
Vithani, Neha; Batra, Sahil; Prakash, Balaji; Nair, Nisanth N. (6 January 2017). "Elucidating the GTP Hydrolysis Mechanism in FeoB: A Hydrophobic Amino-Acid Substituted GTPase". ACS Catalysis. 7 (1): 902–906. doi:10.1021/acscatal.6b03365.
^"NASI Year Book 2015"(PDF). National Academy of Sciences, India. 12 January 2018. Archived from the original(PDF) on 6 August 2015. Retrieved 12 January 2018.