Veena Parnaik

Veena Krishnaji Parnaik (born 1953) is an Indian cell biologist and the current Chief Scientist at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology. She obtained her Masters in Science in medicinal biochemistry from the University of Mumbai and received her PhD from Ohio State University before moving back to India to work at the CCMB. Her research is focused on understanding the functional role of the nuclear lamina and how defects in it may lead to disorders such as progeria and muscular dystrophy.

Education and career In 1974, Dr. Veena Parnaik obtained her M.Sc from the University of Mumbai. She then traveled to the United States to obtain her PhD at Ohio State University for her research on the enzyme dextransucrase. Symptoms of laminopathy may include muscular dystrophy, diabetes, dysplasia and progeria (premature aging). Dr. Parnaik's research is concerned with discovering the cause of a number of defects on the nuclear level that result from mutations in LMNA that include failure to differentiate in adipose tissue, impaired nuclear integrity, impairment in the cell's ability to respond to DNA damaging agents, and cellular toxicity which may lead to premature aging. From her research, Dr. Parnaik pointed towards a complex that formed between lamin A/C and cyclin D3 that played an important role in muscle cell differentiation. Dr. Parnaik's research may pave the way to new understanding of how cell's differentiate in the embryonic stage and may provide insight into how mutations and deletions in these molecules may explain certain embryonic defects and failures to differentiate.

Honors and awards Dr. Parnaik has served on the Executive Committee of the Indian Society of Cell Biology for numerous years (1991-1994, 2003-2005, and 2007-2009) and she served as the president of the Society from 2011 to 2013. In 2004 she was elected Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy in New Delhi and in 2008 she was elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences in Bangalore. In 2011 she received the JC Bose Fellowship. Dr. Parnaik has also received a number of prestigious awards including the Shakuntala Devi Amirchand Prize of ICMR (1992), the Dr. PA Krup Lecture Award of Society of Biological Chemists for India (1997) and the Professor SP Ray-Chaudhuri Lecture Award of Indian Society of Cell Biology (2010).