Dr. Santosh K. Padhi completed his Master’s degree in Chemistry in 1999 from Berhampur University, Odisha. He received his Ph. D. in 2005 from Indian Institute of Technology Madras. His doctoral thesis was entitled on “Biocatalytic deracemisation in the synthesis of optically pure beta-hydroxy esters”.
Dr Padhi has carried out his postdoctoral research at the Department of Chemistry, University Florida, USA from 2005 to 2007 and worked on engineering old yellow enzyme (Saccharomyces pastorianus) that uncovered stereocomplementary enzymes. On his next postdoctoral research at the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics, at the Biotechnology Institute, University of Minnesota from 2007 to 2009, he worked on engineering an esterase in converting into a hydroxynitrile lyase. After being awarded the Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) research fellowship, Dr Padhi has moved to Germany in 2009. During his research at University of Greifswald, Germany he worked on engineering enzymes for new catalysis, with special emphasis in converting an esterase and/or an epoxide hydrolase into a haloalkane dehalogenase.
After his AvH postdoctoral research at the Department of Biotechnology & Enzyme Catalysis, Institute of Biochemistry, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University, Greifswald, Germany from 2010-2011, he has joined as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at BITS Pilani in 2012.