Dronamraju Krishna Rao

Dronamraju Krishna Rao (born January 14, 1937) is an Indianborn geneticist and president of the Foundation for Genetic Research in Houston, Texas He was born in Pithapuram, in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India One focus of his work has been the research of J B S HaldaneDronamraju went to MR College in Vizianagaram, Andhra University to study botany and earned a bachelors degree in 1955 He received a masters degree from Agra University in 1957; he studied plant breeding and genetics When JBS Haldane moved to India in 1957, it gave Dronamraju an opportunity to pursue biological and genetic research After finishing an MSc, he wrote to Haldane for an opportunity to pursue research career under his direction at the Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta
Early in his research career, he discovered the first case of a gene on the human Y chromosome and published a paper in 1960 It was also part of his PhD thesis at the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta Dronamrajus research with Haldane at the Indian Statistical Institute included many areasDronamrajus research covers the visits of several species of lepidoptera to different colored flowers of Lantana camara reported the discovery of a speciesspecific pattern of color preference behavior by pollinating insectsHe did research in human genetics in India In 1966, Dronamraju completed his PhD from the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta He studied under J B S Haldane The topic of his doctoral thesis was Genetic Studies of the Andhra Pradesh population Dronamrajus early research in human genetics (and the independent work of LD Saghvi at the Tata Cancer Center in Mumbai) eventually led to the foundation of the Indian Society of Human Genetics