Jayant B. Udgaonkar obtained his BSc in chemistry from the University of Bombay, India, in 1979 and his MSc in chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India, in 1981. He then obtained his PhD from Cornell University in 1986, majoring in biochemistry and minoring in applied physics. His PhD research was on the functioning of the acetylcholine receptor using fast kinetic methods as well as single-channel current recording techniques. His postdoctoral work was in biochemistry at Stanford University, where he developed the NMR-detected pulsed hydrogen-exchange methodology to obtain detailed structural information on protein folding reactions. He joined the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, India, in early 1990, being the first faculty member recruited to its new National Centre for Biological Sciences. He has made significant contributions to our understanding of how proteins begin to fold, on the utilization of multiple folding pathways and how they differ, and on how proteins unfold. His work has also led to a better understanding of how misfolding commences and how conformational conversion occurs during misfolding. In late 2017, he joined the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Pune.
