Born: 5th July 1947
Died: 10th December 2017
Shri Lalji Singh was born on 9th July 1947, (just a month before our independence)in a small village Kalwari, Jaunpur, U.P. From a simple village boy to becoming a renowned scientist, he had to travel a long distance, which became the pride for India in a true sense. He completed his intermediate in science, from a nearby village school and went to Banaras to pursue his graduation in Zoology and Cytogenetics at Banaras Hindu University (BHU). He completed his graduation in 1964 and his Master’s in 1966.
He also got a Gold medal and received a UGC fellowship for his further research and received his Ph.D. degree in 1971 on “Evolution of karyotypes in snakes’ ‘ in Cytogenetics under the guidance of Professor S.P. Ray Chaudhuri. He was awarded Indian National Science Academy (INSA) in 1974 for his work and intelligence in the field of Cytogenetics. His career was not less than a genius one, as in the same year he received Commonwealth Fellowship to pursue his postdoctoral research in molecular biology at the Edinburg University, U.K. There he worked as a Research Associate (1974-1987), during the period he also served at other universities in different positions. The founder Director of CCMB, Dr. Pushpa Mittra Bhargava, identified Prof. Lalji as a gem whose work fetched him the very solemnly deserved title “The Father of Indian DNA Fingerprinting”, who introduced us to DNA fingerprinting and its applications in forensic science and judiciary system. As a Head, he served the top-ranking R&D institute for almost 15 years. During the period, the Department of Biotechnology (Government of India) requested Prof. Lalji to set up the Center for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD) so that it can be applied and undergo further development for the DNA fingerprinting technology which would be of great benefit to the country. Now the Centre is already helping people with DNA diagnostic services for many serious genetic disorders such as Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, Sickle Cell Anemia, Azoospermia, Mental Retardation, Fragile-X Syndrome, Huntington’s Disease, Thalassemia, etc and also the forensic DNA typing facility. Prof. Lalji became the 25th Vice-chancellor of BHU in 2011. Other than DNA fingerprinting, Professor has shown his research expertise in many other fields like the molecular basis of sex determination, the human genome, and ancient DNA studies, silkworm genome analysis, etc. During his 43 years of an excellent scientific career, many awards and credentials such as in the year 2004 Government of India awarded him with ‘Padma Shri’ Prof. Lalji Singh died on10th December 2017, in Varanasi following a cardiac attack at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Airport. Swami Vivekanand Subharti University remembers the great personality, on his birth anniversary, who is behind the revolutionary birth of DNA Fingerprinting in India.
