Dr. B. Ravindranath (born, 1947, Ph.D. 1971, Delhi University) has had over 30 years of research and development experience in the fields of natural products and synthetic organic chemistry, chemical analysis, chemical technology and separation technology. He has been associated with a number of Indian and International Universities, National Laboratories and industries. He has authored/co-authored over 80 original research papers and patents and published a book on "Principles and Practice of Chromatography" (Horwood, England, 1989, 502 pp. $ 150).
He is also the editor of two international series of volumes on the "Chemistry and Biochemistry of Organic Natural Products" and "Chromatography: Principles, Practice " (being published by Harwood Academic, Amsterdam). During the past two decades, he has established active research laboratories for organic chemical research at
(i) Central Food Technol. Research Institute, Mysore and
(ii) Vittal Mallya Scientific Research Foundation, Bangalore.

His major research interests have been in the areas of

1. Use of agricultural byproducts as renewable raw materials for preparation of value-added chemicals,
2. development of recyclable (non-polluting/polymer bound) reagents,
3. energy-efficient (sonochemical) organic transformations and
4. cost-effective separation technologies.
5. Solid-phase synthetic organic chemistry

1. Development of the concept of multi-dimensional frontal-displacement chromatography for large-scale separation of bioactive compounds from natural sources (e.g., azadirachtin from neem seeds);
2. Use of ultrasound for efficient organic transformations with wide applications in fat-splitting as well as in solid-phase and conventional peptide synthesis;
3. Preparation and use of polymer-bound reagents;
4. Use of speciality polymers for removal of bitterness from orange juice;
5. Accelerated maturation of malt spirits;
6. Zinc-salt assisted substitution of tertiary and benzylic halides (which has led to new processes of manufacture of a variety of aroma chemicals and peptides;
7. Use of enzymes in organic synthesis;
8. Stationary-phase engineering for separation of organic acids (e.g., anacardic acids from cashewnut shell liquid);
9. Ion-exchange technology for high-purity hydroxycitric acid from Garcinia fruits;
10. Preparation and applications of new lipophilic metal salts of anacardic acids;
11. Novel reversed stationary phases for chromatography based on alumina-copper anacardate;
12. Preparation and use of chiral synthons based on amino acids;
13. Preparative methods for a variety of chiral synthons based on 2-amino alcohols;
14. Technologies for manufacture of a variety of specialty products for solid-phase organic and peptide synthesis as well as combinatorial chemistry;
15. Convenient analytical protocols for monitoring solid-phase organic reactions.