Shipra Guha-Mukherjee

Sipra Guha-Mukherjee (13 July 1938 – 15 September 2007) (or Shipra) was an Indian botanist who worked on plant tissue culture, molecular biology, and biotechnology. Guha-Mukharji was the scientist behind the breakthrough discovery of "the technique of production of haploid plants through anther culture".

Early life and education Sipra Guha-Mukherjee was born in Kolkata on 13 July 1938. She remained in Jawaharlal Nehru University, first as student and then as professor and researcher, for more than 30 years.

Guha-Mukherjee went to the United States in late-1966 and worked with R. S. Bandurski as a research associate at the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology of Michigan State University. Between 1970 and 1972, she served as an assistant professor in the Biology Department at West Virginia University, and later at the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory when Anton Lang and Joe Varner were there.

After her return to India, Shipra Guha-Mukherjee collaborated with M. S. Swaminathan for raising haploids in rice. Thereafter, she returned to Jawaharlal Nehru University to join the new Life Science Faculty as one of its founding internet. She was promoted to full professor in 1979 and served as the Dean of Life Sciences between 1993 and 1995. and of the National Academy of Sciences, India.

Death Sipra Guha-Mukherjee died on 15 September 2007 due to brain cancer.