Professor Gautam Banerjee completed his BSc and MSc in Chemistry from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, and PhD from IICB (CSIR), Kolkata, specialising in drug discovery, microbiology and immunology, with a focus on leishmaniasis. His postdoctoral work at Yale University, USA was in immunology and molecular biology for vaccine development. He then returned to India to Join Unilever/HUL as a senior scientist, where he led various programmes in skin and oral health, immunity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases, successfully transferred several new technologies to the market under different global brands. He also initiated several new projects across different R&D sites of Unilever and set up new labs.
In 2014-15, he led the team that defined and implemented the strategy for Unilever R&D, Bioscience. His last role at Unilever was as Global R&D Director of Strategic Science, where he and his team conducted several preclinical assays and more than 100 human clinical trials for claims purposes in multiple health areas. After an 18-year tenure at Unilever, he joined the Tata Group as Head of Innovation in the Nutritional Science pillar of Tata Chemicals Ltd, where he developed several new technologies using prebiotics, probiotics, and naturals for multiple health benefits through modulation of gut and skin microbiome.
At Tata Medical, he worked on developing the first Covid diagnostic kit in the world using CRISPR/Cas 9, as well as qRT-PCR. His most recent position is with Omniactives, focusing on natural molecules for multiple health benefits. He has 28 well-cited publications (h-index 19) in international peer-reviewed journals, two book chapters and more than 25 global patents. He has a successful track record of global collaboration with several world-class academic institutes. He has been an advisor of the startup cell of Government of Karnataka since 2015, as well as to IIT-KGP for their healthcare programme. Currently, he is running his own startup focused on regulating skin health and beauty by targeting skin microbiome.
