Professor K K Bhutani has been appointed new director of the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), Punjab. Professor Bhutani assumed charge on December 31, 2009. He succeeds professor P Rama Rao who held the office from July 2004 to December 2009.

Professor Bhutani did his Ph D from the Panjab University, Chandigarh in the year 1977 and worked as assistant director, Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu (Formerly known as Regional Research Laboratory) and served various pharma industries. He joined the Department of Natural Products of NIPER, S.A.S. Nagar since its inception in the year 1994. Professor K K Bhutani also served as dean of NIPER for two terms from year 2002 to 2008.

After taking over the charge, professor K K Bhutani said, “I will continue the progress which is there and will definitely take forward the institute to attain new heights. The activities would be reinforced further and efforts will be made to elevate the institute’s criterion.”

Professor Bhutani’s research interests include areas of inflammation, life style diseases, protozoal diseases, viral infections and microbicides for drug discovery and development. His group also works for NCEs' generation, standardisation of ayurvedic single and polyherbal drugs, development and validation of analytical methods for medicinal plants and formulations. Bioprospecting of hot spot biodiversity of north-east India for NCEs generation. He has published and presented over 180 research papers, 13 patent and five books to his credit. For his research achievements, professor Bhutani has been accorded several prestigious awards, which also include the US AID Visiting Scientist Fellowship, USA. He is an International Fellow Sigma XI of Sigma XI - The Scientific Research Society of North America; Fellow, American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists USA; Member Policy Group on Medicinal Chemistry. Professor Bhutani amended and laid down new academic rules during his tenure as Dean of NIPER and was instrumental in establishing the 'Placement cell' & 'NIPER-Alumni' of the institute.