# Niranjan Parajuli

Niranjan Parajuli (Nepali: निरञ्जन पराजुली) is a Nepali chemist, biochemist and biotechnologist who was President of the Nepal Chemical Society (2019–2021) and served as Professor of Chemistry at the Central Department of Chemistry, Tribhuvan University, Nepal, from March 2018 to January 2025. Parajuli recently resigned from Tribuvan university. He has advocated for change in the Nepali education system, writing op-eds for national dailies, particularly focusing on higher education. EduRank has sorted Parajuli as a notable alumnus of Tribhuvan University.

## Personal life

Niranjan Parajuli was born in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal to Govinda Prasad Parajuli (Nepali: गोविन्द प्रसाद पराजुली) and his wife Durga Parajuli (Nepali: दुर्गा पराजुली), in August 1972. He is married to Madhabi Bhatta, who is a Nepali journalist and former commissioner of the Nepali Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

### Religious views

In an interview by a Nepali Science Magazine, RevoScience dating to 2016, Parajuli has clarified that he believes in religion however is secular, he has added that he is not able to lead religion, because there are certain things which even science is unable to clarify.

### Public affairs

Parajuli has been voicing a topic related to compensation in land procurement in Tinkune, Kathmandu because he is also one of the land owners who did not receive compensation for land acquisition from the government of Nepal for about 50 years.

## Education

Parajuli has received his Bachelor of Science majoring in physics, chemistry, and mathematics from Tribhuvan University in 1994. He then completed his Master of Science degree majoring in chemistry from the same university with the highest honors in the whole graduate program. Parajuli received his doctorate in biochemistry from the Department of Chemistry, Institute of Biomolecule Reconstruction at Sun Moon University, Korea, in 2004. His PhD dissertation focuses on manipulation of antibiotic biosynthetic pathway and bioorganic chemistry.

## Career and research

Parajuli began his career at Kathmandu University as a lecturer of chemistry in 1998. He was promoted to assistant professor at the same institution in 2004. He was a postdoctoral researcher from 2005 to 2009 at Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Republic of Korea, upon completion of PhD from Sun Moon University. He assumed the role of a research professor at the same university in 2009. From early 2010 to late 2011 he was a postdoctoral research associate at the Department of Chemistry at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, United States. As a biotechnologist, from 2012 he led the Department of Biotechnology, National College, Tribhuvan University, as the head.

### Teaching

Parajuli started his teaching career from Kathmandu University in 1998, continuing teaching activities from other institutions after leaving Kathmandu University; he has been appointed as a teaching full professor in 2018 at Tribhuvan University. His area of teaching is organic chemistry and biochemistry. He is famous among students through his teaching and research. Five Ph.D. candidates and dozens of graduate students did their theses under the supervision of Parajuli at Tribhuvan University.

### Research

Parajuli's research is mostly focused on microbial biotechnology, enzyme technology, protein engineering and combinatorial chemistry. He is also active in research using applied biophysics in the field of biochemistry and computational chemistry. He has also published his research works in the field of nanotechnology, from a biological point of view. In 2009, he was appointed as a research full professor. As of 2020, Parajuli has projects in the fields of computational chemistry, identification of enzyme inhibitors from plant sources to treat diabetes, and genetic characterization of actinomycetes for antibiotics production. He also is the chief scientific advisor to a project on investigation of secondary metabolites from natural products with a computational chemistry and immunochemistry approach on COVID-19. He was one of the top scientists in Nepal to receive huge research grants from the University Grants Commission of Nepal between 2019 and 2024. He was employed as a South Korean government-sponsored invited scientist (Research Professor) at Sun Moon University, Korea between 2023 and 2024. He has contributed more than 80 articles in peer-reviewed journals.

## Selected publications

As from Google Scholar, Parajuli is credited as an (co)author for the following works:
* Dawadi, S.; Thapa, R.; Modi, B.; Bhandari, S.; Timilsina, A.P.; Yadav, R.P.; Aryal, B.; Gautam, S.; Sharma, P.; Thapa, B.B.; Aryal, N.; Aryal, S.; Regmi, B.P.; Parajuli, N. Technological advancements for the detection of antibiotics in food products. Processes 2021, 9, 1500. https://doi.org/10.3390/pr9091500
* Adhikari, Bikash, Bishnu P. Marasini, Binod Rayamajhee, Bibek Raj Bhattarai, Ganesh Lamichhane, Karan Khadayat, Achyut Adhikari, Santosh Khanal, and Niranjan Parajuli. Potential roles of medicinal plants for the treatment of viral diseases focusing on COVID‐19: A review. Phytotherapy Research 35, no. 3 (2021): 1298–1312.
* Lamichhane, Ganesh, Ashis Acharya, Darbin Kumar Poudel, Babita Aryal, Narayan Gyawali, Purushottam Niraula, Sita Ram Phuyal, Prakriti Budhathoki, Ganesh Bk, and Niranjan Parajuli. Recent advances in bioethanol production from Lignocellulosic biomass. International Journal of Green Energy 18, no. 7 (2021): 731–744.
* Marahatha, Rishab, Saroj Basnet, Bibek Raj Bhattarai, Prakriti Budhathoki, Babita Aryal, Bikash Adhikari, Ganesh Lamichhane, Darbin Kumar Poudel, and Niranjan Parajuli. Potential natural inhibitors of xanthine oxidase and HMG-CoA reductase in cholesterol regulation: in silico analysis. BMC complementary medicine and therapies 21, no. 1 (2021): 1–11.
* Dawadi, Sonika, Saurav Katuwal, Aakash Gupta, Uttam Lamichhane, Ranjita Thapa, Shankar Jaisi, Ganesh Lamichhane, Deval Prasad Bhattarai, and Niranjan Parajuli. Current research on silver nanoparticles: Synthesis, characterization, and applications. Journal of Nanomaterials 2021 (2021).
* Aryal, Babita, Purushottam Niraula, Karan Khadayat, Bikash Adhikari, Dadhiram Khatri Chhetri, Basanta Kumar Sapkota, Bibek Raj Bhattarai, Niraj Aryal, and Niranjan Parajuli. Antidiabetic, Antimicrobial, and Molecular Profiling of Selected Medicinal Plants. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2021 (2021).
* Joshi, Bishnu, Sujogya Kumar Panda, Ramin Saleh Jouneghani, Maoxuan Liu, Niranjan Parajuli, Pieter Leyssen, Johan Neyts, and Walter Luyten. Antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, and anthelmintic activities of medicinal plants of Nepal selected based on ethnobotanical evidence. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2020 (2020).
* Awal, R.P., Garcia, R., Gemperlein, K., Wink, J., Kunwar, B., Parajuli, N., and Müller, R. (2017). Vitiosangium cumulatum gen. nov., sp. nov. and Vitiosangium subalbum sp. nov., soil myxobacteria, and emended descriptions of the genera Archangium and Angiococcus, and of the family Cystobacteraceae. International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology 67, 1422–1430.
* Joshi, B., Hendrickx, S., Magar, L., Parajuli, N., Dorny, P., and Maes, L. (2016). In vitro Antileishmanial and Antimalarial Activity of Selected Plants of Nepal. J Intercult Ethnopharmacol 5, 383.
* Parajuli, N., and Williams, G.J. (2011). A high-throughput screen for directed evolution of aminocoumarin amide synthetases. Analytical Biochemistry 419, 61–66.
* Park, J.W., Hong, J.S.J., Parajuli, N., Jung, W.S., Park, S.R., Lim, S.-K., Sohng, J.K., and Yoon, Y.J. (2008). Genetic dissection of the biosynthetic route to gentamicin A2 by heterologous expression of its minimal gene set. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105, 8399–8404.
* Park, J.W., Hong, J.S.J., Parajuli, N., Koh, H.S., Park, S.R., Lee, M.-O., Lim, S.-K., and Yoon, Y.J. (2007). Analytical Profiling of Biosynthetic Intermediates Involved in the Gentamicin Pathway of Micromonospora echinospora by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography Using Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometric Detection. Anal. Chem. 79, 4860–4869.
* Parajuli, N., Basnet, D.B., Chung, Y.S., Lee, H.C., Liou, K., and Sohng, J.K. (2005). Biochemical characterization of a novel thermostable glucose-1-phosphate thymidylyltransferase from Thermuscaldophilus: Probing the molecular basis for its unusual thermostability. Enzyme and Microbial Technology 37, 402–409.
* Bhandari, D. P., Poudel, D. K., Satyal, P., Khadayat, K., Dhami, S., Aryal, D., Chaudhary, P., Ghimire, A., & Parajuli, N. (2021). Volatile Compounds and Antioxidant and Antimicrobial Activities of Selected Citrus Essential Oils Originated from Nepal. Molecules, 26(21), 6683. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules26216683
* Adhikari, A., Bhattarai, B. R., Aryal, A., Thapa, N., Kc, P., Adhikari, A., Maharjan, S., Chanda, P. B., Regmi, B. P., & Parajuli, N. (2021). Reprogramming natural proteins using unnatural amino acids. RSC Advances, 11(60), 38126–38145. https://doi.org/10.1039/D1RA07028B
* Lamichhane, G., Khadka, S., Acharya, A., & Parajuli, N. (2021). Pretreatment of finger millet straw (Eleusine coracana) for enzymatic hydrolysis towards bioethanol production. Biomass Conversion and Biorefinery. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-021-01633-4
* Aryal, B., Adhikari, B., Aryal, N., Bhattarai, B. R., Khadayat, K., & Parajuli, N. (2021). LC-HRMS Profiling and Antidiabetic, Antioxidant, and Antibacterial Activities of Acacia catechu (L.f.) Willd. BioMed Research International, 2021, e7588711. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/7588711
* Modi, B., Timilsina, H., Bhandari, S., Achhami, A., Pakka, S., Shrestha, P., Kandel, D., Gc, D. B., Khatri, S., Chhetri, P. M., & Parajuli, N. (2021). Current Trends of Food Analysis, Safety, and Packaging. International Journal of Food Science, 2021, e9924667. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/9924667
* Marahatha, R., Gyawali, K., Sharma, K., Gyawali, N., Tandan, P., Adhikari, A., Timilsina, G., Bhattarai, S., Lamichhane, G., Acharya, A., Pathak, I., Devkota, H. P., & Parajuli, N. (2021). Pharmacologic activities of phytosteroids in inflammatory diseases: Mechanism of action and therapeutic potentials. Phytotherapy Research, 35(9), 5103–5124. https://doi.org/10.1002/ptr.7138
* Babita Aryal, Bimal Kumar Raut, Salyan Bhattarai, Sobika Bhandari, Parbati Tandan, Kabita Gyawali, Kabita Sharma, Deepa Ranabhat, Ranjita Thapa, Dipa Aryal, Atul Ojha, Hari Prasad Devkota, Niranjan Parajuli, "Potential Therapeutic Applications of Plant-Derived Alkaloids against Inflammatory and Neurodegenerative Diseases", Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, vol. 2022, https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/7299778
* Bhattarai, B. R., Regmi, B. P., Gupta, A., Aryal, B., Adhikari, B., Paudel, M., & Parajuli, N. (2022). Importance of advanced analytical techniques and methods for food quality control and pollution analysis for more sustainable future in the least developed countries. Sustainable Chemistry and Pharmacy, 27, 100692. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scp.2022.100692
* Mandal, A.K., Katuwal, S., Tettey, F., Gupta, A., Bhattarai, S., Jaisi, S., Bhandari, D.P., Shah, A.K., Bhattarai, N. and Parajuli, N., 2022. Current research on zinc oxide nanoparticles: Synthesis, characterization, and biomedical applications. Nanomaterials, 12(17), p. 3066. https://www.mdpi.com/2079-4991/12/17/3066