Nihar Ranjan Jana

Nihar Ranjan Jana (born 1965) is an Indian neuroscientist and professor at the IIT Kharagpur, known for his studies on E3 ubiquitin ligases, protein homeostasis and neurodegenerative disorders.

He served as faculty at National Brain Research Centre up to May 2018 and then moved to IIT Kharagpur, where he joined as Professor in the School of Bioscience.

[1] Jana is involved in the research on neurological disorders caused by proteopathy and has carried out investigations on the role of E3 ubiquitin ligases as a causative factor.

[3] He has demonstrated how the ligases control cellular protein quality and how the absence of such an activity caused neuronal dysfunction or neurodegeneration.

He led a team of scientists from NBRC and Bose Institute who conducted experiments on Huntington's disease, an inherited neurological disorder which led to the death of brain cells, and suggested azadiradione, a compound found in the seeds of Azadirachta indica (commonly known as neem) as a possible therapeutic molecule.