Tapas Kumar Kundu

[8] Born on 2 January 1962 at Hili, a border town near Balurghat in Dakshin Dinajpur district in the Indian state of West Bengal to Kalachand Kundu and Dipali couple, Tapas Kumar Kundu graduated in agriculture (BSc hons) from Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya in 1986 and completed his master's degree in biochemistry from University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore in 1989, winning a gold medal for standing first in the master's degree examination.

[9] He enrolled for doctoral studies at the Indian Institute of Science in 1990 and secured a PhD under the guidance of M. R. S. Rao[10] in 1995 for his thesis, Zinc-Metalloprotein Nature of Rat Spermatidal Protein TP2 and its Interactions with DNA.

[11][note 1] After a short stint at the National Institute of Genetics, Japan during 1995–96 as a visiting foreign research associate, he did his post-doctoral studies at the Laboratory of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Rockefeller University during 1996–99.

Returning to India the same year, he joined Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research at their Molecular Biology and Genetics Unit where he became an assistant professor in 2005 and heads the Transcription and Disease Laboratory of the institution in the capacity of a JNCASR Silver Jubillee Professor since 2015.

[17] He demonstrated the histone chaperone activity and the acetylation of chromatin transcription and these findings have been reported to have helped in identifying new drug candidates.

[20] Several of his research findings have been put to commercial use by various companies and he holds several patents for his works which include processes and compounds.