Prof. S. C. Lakhotia is a Lifetime Distinguished Professor in the Department of Zoology at Banaras Hindu University. He obtained his PhD from the University of Calcutta in 1970 for his pioneering work on dosage compensation in Drosophila and has been actively engaged in teaching and research since 1971. His research extensively uses Drosophila as a model system to investigate developmental gene regulation, chromosome replication, cell stress responses, long non-coding RNAs, neurodegeneration, tumour biology, and emerging areas such as Ayurvedic biology. Beyond laboratory research, Prof. Lakhotia has been deeply involved in national discussions on the quality of higher education, research integrity, and publication ethics, and is a strong advocate for improving the standards of Indian scientific journals. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of the Proceedings of the Indian National Science Academy and as a member of the editorial boards of Current Science, Journal of Biosciences, RNA Biology, Cell Stress & Chaperones, and Annals of Neurosciences. An elected Fellow of all three Indian science academies and a Senior Fellow of the Cell Stress Society International (USA), he is a recipient of numerous honours, including the INSA Young Scientist Medal, S. S. Bhatnagar Prize, UGC J. C. Bose Medal, INSA Aryabhata Medal, and the SERB Distinguished Fellowship.
