Professor Santosh Kumar - Patron

Prof. Santosh Kumar was born in Bhopal on 9th January 1939 and had education at Govt. Motilal Vigyan Mahavidyalaya, Bhopal. He obtained his B.Sc. (1959), M.Sc. (1962) and Ph.D. (1967) degrees from Vikram University, Ujjain. He conducted research work for Ph.D. on the structure, development and innervation of the conducting system of the Amphibian heart. He was appointed as Lecturer at S.N. College, Khandwa in 1962. Then he joined Govt Motilal Vigyan Mahavidyalaya, Bhopal in the capacity of Assistant Professor and served till November 1977. Subsequently he joined Bhopal University, now known as Barkatullah University, in 1977 as Reader in the Department of Biosciences and since 1986 he is holding the position of Professor and Head of the Department of Biosciences.

Prof. Kumar also acted as Dean, Student Welfare and Dean, in addition to his responsibility as Professor and Head. He was also appointed as Rector and later Vice Chancellor of Barkatullah University, Bhopal. Dr. Santosh Kumar also worked as visiting Professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Corbell University, Itheca, New York in 1978. He had also visited several Universities in United States of America, United Kingdom, Germany and Austria. He was the President of Indian Science Congress Association in the section of Zoology, Entomology & Fisheries in its 87th Session held at Pune in the year 2000.



Prof. Santosh Kumar’s work on the structure, development and innervation of the conducting system of the heart of Fishes and Amphibians, is internationally recognized and is cited in research publications, review articles and books of international repute. He has demonstrated that various chambers of the heart of these vertebrates are not interrupted by Purkinje system. He important contribution in this direction is that, there is an absence of specialized tissues and the impulse conduction is neither purely myogenic nor entirely neurogenic in nature, but is a complex combination of the two. He has shown total density of the neural component by Silver Impregnation Techniques and Cholinergic and Adrenergic components with special techniques including Electron Microscopy.

His work on the innervation of the heart of Apoda is the only work hitherto known. His recent investigation on enzyme kinetics has shown that during myocardial necrosis, AchE kinetics is helpful in the diagnosis of myocardial infarction. For his research contributions, Zoological Society of India awarded Prof. Kumar a Gold Medal. He has also established that AchE is helpful in monitoring the pesticide toxicity of aquatic animals. More than 60 research papers have been published in international and national journals. He has also contributed several review articles in many books.

He is the author of two books ‘The Amphibian Heart’ (1975), was published by S. Chand & Co., New Delhi while ‘Anatomy and Physiology of Fishes’ (1996) was published by Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi. The book ‘Amphibian Heart’ is elucidated in Biology of Amphibians (McGraw Hill Publication, New York). His book on ‘Vertebrate’s Heart’ is ready for publication. He is Chief Editor of Asian Journal of Experimental Sciences since last 16 years. Presently he is working as Vice-Chancellor, Dr. H.S. Gour University, Sagar (India).