Having two research papers published in two top scientific journals in the same week is not unheard of but it is rather rare. But two papers that deal with totally unconnected diseases? That's Aravinda Chakravarti, one of the towering scientific minds in the field of human genetics, for you.

In the first week of April, Chakravarti, professor of medicine, molecular biology and genetics at McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, published a paper on the genetic underpinnings of a lesser known bowel disease called Hirschsprung's disease, in the American Journal of Human Genetics. The same week, the high-impact Nature journal had a paper by him and his co-authors on a rare form of autism.

Chakravarti, born in Sealdah in Calcutta some 60 years ago, has come a long way and is one of the most respected geneticists in the world today.

One of the first scientists to use statistics as a tool to solve research problems in computational biology and analyse genetic data, his exceptional computational skills - a service often rendered voluntarily in the early days of his career - have come in handy for many scientists seeking to uncover the genetics of many diseases. Two such studies he was prominently involved in are the study of genetics of haemoglobin disorders and identifying and isolating the gene implicated in cystic fibrosis, an inherited condition that causes severe damage to the lungs and digestive system.

"I am a geneticist and am involved in uncovering not only which genes are involved but why a particular gene causes a particular disorder," the professor told KnowHow.

"I think we finally have the technologies to be able to answer the causes of (most) human diseases....We have been discovering many genes but we still do not understand why they lead to the diseases they do. As one of my colleagues (the late Johns Hopkins geneticist) Barton Childs said, we need to answer 'why me? Why this disease? Why now?," he says.

Over the last three decades, the professor played a key role in advancing humanity's understanding of the genetics of complex human diseases, developed genomics techniques that have become standard tools in genetic labs, and contributed critically to international projects such as human genome mapping.

It was due to the efforts of him and like-minded peers that genomic data, still being generated in voluminous quantities across the world, remain freely available.

Chakravarti, who completed undergraduate studies from the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Calcutta, before moving to the US to do a PhD in human genetics from the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, says JBS Haldane - a British-born scientist who settled in India - was his inspiration. "I never met Haldane, but happened to read many of his writings," says Chakravarti. Haldane, who died in 1964, was a professor at ISI.

"I studied at ISI during its magical days when half the course was mathematics and statistics and the other half the sciences. So we not only learned statistics, but the domains where it is to be used," he says.

His wife Shukti Chakravarti, who hails from Kulti near Asansol, is also a professor at Johns Hopkins. She studies diseases of the eye, particularly cornea. The couple has two daughters.

Chakravarti says there is little collaboration between the US and India in human genome and genetic research because samples cannot move freely between the two countries. "Indian samples are not allowed to leave India," he explains. "India should make great contributions to genomics but I am not sure that, except for a few places, it is taken seriously. Even human genetics has a very small footprint in India," Chakravarti rues.

India should collaborate with people elsewhere as that is the nature of science. "No person or group or country has a monopoly of science," he says. Chakravarti is very critical of the current crop of science leaders in India who, he says, "talk a lot, but do little."

Unlike China, India has been very poor at engaging its diaspora in collaborations. "While genomics is making huge strides, in India it is not," says Chakravarti, who also wrote an Indian cookbook, Not Everything We Eat Is Curry, in the 1970s.

"Aravinda is a world leader in the field of complex genetic disorders. He is also a truly interdisciplinary scientist who combines statistics, computational biology and biological experiments to study these disorders," says Akhilesh Pandey, his colleague at Johns Hopkins.

"He is an excellent role model for aspiring scientists. He has several qualities that are not commonly seen, especially in the light of the rapidly changing culture in the world of science. He is very rigorous in his science, meticulous about his approach and critical in interpreting data," says Pandey. "He doesn't mince his words - his brutal honesty about everything in science is quite refreshing."

"He advises a number of agencies and institutes in the US and the rest of the world," he notes. Pandey feels that it is in India where his expertise is needed more. "He can spearhead and accelerate not just human genetics but also science in general.