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DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY
INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY MADRAS
DR. HEMA CHANDRA KOTAMARTHI
Assistant Professor+91-44-2257-4213
CYB 320, Department of Chemistry Indian Institute of Technology Madras Chennai - 600036 INDIA
Education
Biography
Hema Chandra Kotamarthi’s research interest lies in understanding the physicochemical properties of Biomolecules, in particular proteins and enzymes. Prior to his appointment as an Assistant professor at the IIT Madras in September 2020, he was a research scientist and Howard Hughes Medical Institute research associate at the Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the labs of Profs. Tania Baker and Bob Sauer. His interest in studying the kinetic and mechanical properties of proteins and enzymes stemmed during his graduate studies in Dr. Sri Rama Koti Ainavarapu’s lab at TIFR. Apart from research and teaching activities, he is also very interested in science communication and popularization and has written science articles for “Sakshi”, a Telugu daily. In addition, he has been a lead organizer of “Young Investigator Meeting- Boston”- 2018 & 2015, a platform that brings together academicians from India and researchers of Indian origin in the USA.
Research Interests
Honors and Recognitions
Representative Publications
- Pushpkant Sahu, Samapti Mondal, Bincy Lukose, Thalappil Pradeep, Hema Chandra Kotamarthi. “Concerted Deoligomerization and Nonfunctional Reassembly of the Hexameric Proteasomal ATPase Mpa upon Chemical and Thermal Perturbation”, Biochemistry, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.biochem.5c00642
- Pushpkant Sahu, Soham Mukherjee, Jijith Mepperi, Sandipan Saha, Khusbhoo Goel, Hema Chandra Kotamarthi. “Force Spectroscopy Tools for Probing the Mechanochemistry of Protein Folding/Unfolding.” In: Tripathy, U. (eds) Biochemical and Biophysical Methods in Molecular and Cellular Biology. Springer, Singapore, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-96-2088-3_12
- Jijith Mepperi, Soham Mukherjee, Khushboo Goel, Hema Chandra Kotamarthi. “The Complex Energy Landscape of miRFP709, a 41-Knotted Protein, Results in Its Irreversible Denaturation”, J. Phys. Chem. B, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcb.4c05439
- Narendran S, Pushpkant Sahu, Swathi Sudhakar, Hema Chandra Kotamarthi. “Electrostatic interactions drive phase separation in Pup protein”, Chem Commun, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1039/D4CC04264F
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Soham Mukherjee, Jijith Mepperi, Pushpkant Sahu, Deep Kumar Barman, Hema Chandra Kotamarthi
“Single-Molecule Optical Tweezers As a Tool for Delineating the Mechanisms of Protein-Processing Mechanoenzymes”, ACS Omega, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.2c06044
- Hema Chandra Kotamarthi, Robert Sauer, Tania Baker. “The non-dominant AAA+ ring in the ClpAP protease functions as an anti-stalling motor to accelerate protein unfolding and translocation”, Cell Reports, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2020.01.110
The Department of Chemistry is one of the first Departments to function after the Indian Institute of Technology Madras was founded in 1959