JC

JAYAKUMAR CHINNAPPAN

Sacred Heart college, Loyola College, Chennai, St. Joseph's College, Trichy

ORCID iD 0000-0002-3642-8602
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About

My Journey in Chemistry
Where It Began
I trace my life in chemistry back to St. Joseph's College in Tiruchirappalli, where I completed my Bachelor of Science in Chemistry between 2003 and 2006. Trichy has long been a place that produces scientists — the kind of college town where a young student can get a first real taste of the discipline before deciding whether to go further with it. I decided to go further. I stayed on at St. Joseph's for my Master of Science, which I completed in 2008, and it was there, working on a project titled "Action of NBS on Acetals," that I first learned what it actually feels like to sit with a reaction, to watch how a reagent like N-bromosuccinimide behaves against an acetal-protected substrate, and to try to reason my way from what I observed to what must be happening at the mechanistic level. That project taught me patience with mechanism — a habit of mind I have carried into every part of my career since.
Finding My Research Identity
My Master of Philosophy, completed in 2009, also at St. Joseph's College, is where I found the research area that would define much of my working life. My thesis, "Synthesis of Isatine-Based Compounds for Biological Applications," was supervised by Dr. PT. Perumal, a Senior Principal Scientist at the Central Leather Research Institute in Chennai. Working under him introduced me to isatine chemistry — to the design and synthesis of heterocyclic compounds with real biological relevance — and it also introduced me to CLRI itself, an institution that would remain part of my professional life for years afterward.
Doctoral Years at Loyola College
I pursued my PhD in Chemistry at Loyola College, Chennai, from 2010 to 2017, under the supervision of Rev. Dr. Boniface Jeyaraj, SJ. My doctoral thesis, "Nanocomposite-Modified Glassy Carbon Electrode for Electrochemical Sensor Applications," took me into a different but related world — electroanalytical chemistry, where the question is no longer just what a molecule does, but how you can build a surface, a sensor, that responds reliably and sensitively to it. Those seven years taught me how to move between two ways of thinking about chemistry: the synthetic, mechanistic thinking I had developed earlier, and the more materials-and-measurement-focused thinking that electrode design demands. I don't think of these as separate skills anymore. They inform each other.
The CLRI–CECRI Years
Alongside my doctoral work, from 2013 to 2017, I held a position as Junior and then Senior Research Fellow on a UGC Major Research Project based at CECRI, under Reference Number F.No.42-382/2013 (SR). I worked under Dr. Anbukulandainathan at CECRI. Those four years were, in many ways, the most intensive research period of my life so far. I was designing and fabricating nanocomposite-modified glassy carbon electrodes for electrochemical sensing applications, co-authoring what would eventually become eleven peer-reviewed publications, and contributing to research outcomes that were later judged patent-eligible. I also had the chance to present my work at five international conferences, which gave me an early sense of how the field beyond Chennai — beyond India, in fact — was thinking about the same problems I was working on in the lab.
Becoming a Teacher
In 2017, the same year I completed my PhD, I joined Sacred Heart College in Tirupattur as Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry. Moving from eight years as a full-time research fellow into a teaching post was its own kind of transition. I had to learn how to hold onto research while also building a teaching practice — delivering undergraduate and postgraduate lectures in organic chemistry, and, just as importantly, learning how to guide students through their own research projects rather than only conducting my own.
Over the years since, my role at Sacred Heart College has grown. I now serve as Head of the PG & Research Department of Chemistry. I coordinate the college's Research Forum, which has meant organizing national-level seminars and workshops, and I serve as Alumni In-Charge, working to build connections between our department and industry. I also spend a good deal of my time mentoring students — for competitive examinations, for their own research submissions, and for whatever comes after Sacred Heart College for them. That mentorship work doesn't show up in a publication list, but it's some of the work I care about most.
Where My Research Stands Today
My research has never stayed still. It began in synthetic organic chemistry, moved into isatine-based heterocyclic synthesis and biological activity screening, and then into the electrochemical sensor work that became my doctoral focus and the core of my fellowship years. In recent years, it has expanded again — into drug-delivery systems, including a platform for oral insulin delivery that I now have in the patent process. That project asks a harder question than most of my earlier work: not just how to make a

Employment

  • Sacred Heart college Assistant Professor
    2017 - Present

Education

  • Loyola College, Chennai Doctor of Philosophy
    2011 - 2017
  • St. Joseph's College, Trichy M. Phil
    2008 - 2009

Projects & Funding

Projects & funding information is unavailable.

Publications (5)