A CORRESPONDENT
RANGIA: Prof (Dr) Upadhyayula Suryanarayana Murty, Director, National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), Guwahati, has been recently inducted as a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering (FNAE) for the year 2025 under Section-X: Interdisciplinary and Special Engineering Fields and Leadership in Academia, R&D and Industry, in recognition of his outstanding and sustained contributions to engineering-led healthcare innovation, drug discovery, and translational research of national and international relevance.
Prof Murty received the commendation during the INAE Annual Convention 2025 held at the HAL Management Academy (HMA) in Bangalore recently. Prof Murty is widely acknowledged for pioneering interdisciplinary research at the confluence of bioinformatics, pharmacoinformatics, pharmacoengineering, and data-driven healthcare. His work has led to the development of innovative medical devices and technologies for vector control, disease modelling, and next-generation engineered, personalized, and customized medicines.
By effectively integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and advanced data-mining tools, he developed predictive models for disease outbreak forecasting and proactive control strategies—among the first such comprehensive initiatives in India and Asia.
A major highlight of his leadership has been the establishment of advanced national supercomputing facilities, including PARAM 10000, PARAM PADMA, and PARAM Bio-Embryo, which have significantly strengthened drug discovery, pharmaceutical R&D, and high-performance computing-enabled research in the country.
His efforts have also resulted in the development of referral and technical standards that are now adopted at national and international levels. Dr Murty’s vision of affordable healthcare is rooted in an interdisciplinary framework that leverages India’s rich biodiversity, particularly from the North-Eastern region, to develop cost-effective phytopharmaceuticals and biopharmaceuticals using AI/ML-enabled pharmacoinformatics supported by experimental validation.
His initiatives further encompass affordable medical devices, diagnostics, futuristic 3D/4D-printed medicines, and the strengthening of healthcare delivery systems through telemedicine, community-based interventions, and public–private partnerships.
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