M. R. S. Rao

M. R. S. Rao

Born	21 January, 1948 Mysore
Residence	Bangalore
Nationality	Indian
Fields	Biological Sciences
Institutions	Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research
Alma mater	Indian Institute of Science
Doctoral advisor	G. Padmanabhan
Doctoral students	Tapas Kumar Kundu
Known for	Chromatin Biology and Cancer Biology
Notable awards	Padma Shri (2010) and Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology(1988)

Manchanahalli Rangaswamy Satyanarayana Rao known by the abbreviation M. R. S. Rao, is an Indian scientist, born on 21 January 1948 at Mysore, India. He has been awarded Padma Shri in Science and Engineering category (year 2010) by the Government of India. He was the President of Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bangalore, India (2003-2013)

Rao obtained his bachelor's degree (BSc) in 1966 and master's degree (MSc) in 1968 from Bangalore University. He received his PhD in biochemistry from Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore in 1973. Govindarajan Padmanabhan (Former Director, IISc) was his doctoral advisor at Department of Biochemistry. He did his postdoctoral research at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA, (1974–76) and was as Assistant Professor at the same institution. He decided to come back to India and joined Department of Biochemistry, Indian Institute of Science (IISc).

At present, he is an Honorary Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bangalore and actively running Chromatin Biology laboratory. He has been credited as first scientist to initiate Chromatin Biology research in India. In more than 30 years of active research career, his lab at IISc and JNCASR, has mentored more than 35 PhD students, dozens of Postdoctoral fellows and hundreds of research trainees.