Murthy is INSA senior professor in the Molecular Biophysics Unit, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. He obtained his bachelor's from Bangalore University (1970), master's from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (1972) and PhD from the IISc, Bangalore (1977). His research interests are X-ray crystallography, protein and virus structure. He has been awarded the Shantiswaroop Bhatnagar Prize, Rustum Choksi award, GN Ramachandran commemoration award, Hari Om Ashram Trust Award, Jagdish Chandra Bose Award for Life Sciences and G.N. Ramachandram gold medal for excellence in biological sciences. He has been elected to the Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy, and the National Academy of Sciences, India.

Mittal (PhD 1967, U. of Notre Dame) is M.N. SAHA dist. prof., Bhabha Atomic Rsrch. Ctre. (BARC), India (2010). He was Raja Ramanna Fellow, Dept. of Atom. En., India (2006-10); dist. guest prof., IIT, Bombay; hon. prof., U. of Pune; vis. prof., U. of Heidelberg, Germany, and Osaka U., Japan. He was the Director , Chemistry and Isotope Group, BARC, Trombay, and hon. prof., JNCAR, Bangalore. He did his postdoc. work at UCLA, and has published 350 research papers. He is a fellow of INSA, Ind. Acad. of Scs., and Maharashtra Acad. of Scs. He was President., Natl. Acad. of Scs., India, & President, Ind. Chemical Soc. Honours include: Humboldt Res. Award; Sr. JSPS Award; Platinum Jubilee Lecture Award; Ind. Science Congress; INSA Golden Jubilee Medal; NR Dhar Memorial Medal, NAS; Goyal Gold Medal, Kurukshetra U.; Lifetime Achvmt Award, Ind. Chemical Soc., 2008; Lifetime Achvmt Gold Medal, Chemical Res. Soc. of India. Awarded National Awarded" PadmaShree" by the President of India (2003)