BHUBANESWAR: Director of Bhubaneswar-based Institute of Life sciences (ILS) Dr Ajay Parida passed
away at Guwahati in Assam early on Tuesday. He was 58.
Official sources said Dr Parida had gone to Guwahati on Monday to attend a conference. He is learnt to have suffered a cardiac arrest in his sleep. Though he was rushed to a hospital, doctors declared him brought dead.
A native of Bhagabanpur village in Jajpur district, Dr Parida was conferred with Padma Shri for his contribution in the field of Science and Technology in 2014.
Known for his contributions in the fields of agriculture, plant molecular biology and biotechnology, he had served as the Executive Director of the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai during 2009-2016.
In 2017, he joined ILS, now a part of the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG), jointly initiated by the Ministry of Health and Department of Biotechnology (DBT) to monitor the genomic variations in coronavirus.
Dr Parida’s research focused on developing climate resilient crop varieties with abiotic stress tolerance. He had made a significant contribution in identifying stress tolerant genes specifically for salt and drought stress using mangroves.
He had implemented a number of developmental projects that aimed at evolving models for sustainable development in fragile coastal and dry land regions through identification of low water requiring genotypes, effective management of water resources and sound agriculture practice.
An alumnus of Utkal University, he had done PhD from Delhi University and Post-Doctoral Research from the University of Wales, UK, University of Naples, Italy and International Rice Research Institute, Philippines.
He is survived by his wife and only son. His body will be flown to Bhubaneswar after postmortem.