Professor Sangkot Marzuki is Director of the Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology in Jakarta.
He graduated as a medical doctor from the University of Indonesia in 1968, and obtained his M.Sc. from Mahidol University in Bangkok in 1971, and Ph.D. from Monash University in Melbourne in 1975. He was awarded a higher doctorate (D.Sc.) from the latter in 1998, and an honorary doctorate from Utrecht University in 2006.
His main research interest has been in the area of the biogenesis of energy transducing membranes, and human genetic disorders associated with this process. More recently, this long term interest has been extended to incorporate issues of infectious diseases and human genome diversity.
Professor Marzuki was a medical faculty member at the Department of Biochemistry, Monash University Melbourne for 17 years, before moving to Indonesia in 1992 at the invitation of Dr. B.J. Habibie, then the Indonesian Minister for Research and Technology, to rebuild the Eijkman Institute as the premier research institute of Indonesia for molecular and cell biology.
In recent years, the Institute had responded to the challenge of emerging diseases such as Avian Influenza (AI) by working closely with the Ministry of Health National Institute for Health Research and Development.
The Eijkman Institute’s role in the national response to AI includes:
The Institute has a BSL3 facility. The Institute’s interest in the genetic diversity of the people of Indonesia and neighbouring Southeast Asia was key to the development of forensic DNA strategy for Disaster Perpetrator Identification (DPI), which has allowed the Indonesian National Police to identify the perpetrator of the suicide bombing of the Australian Embassy in 2004.
Unlike in the Middle East where an organisation usually claims responsibility for a suicide bombing, in Southeast Asia, those responsible actively avoid to be connected. DPI is central in tracking down the organization behind suicide bombings.
