Current Designation 

Scientist E, In-charge, Project Management Cell

Dr. Pillai decided to move to Science Management in 2010 after his tenure as a Fogarty Postdoctoral Fellow at NIH, USA, where he studied several projects under the anti-malarial drug discovery prograamme. Major projects included, chemical Validation of Plasmodial surface anion channel (PSAC) as an antimalarial drug target, Linkage analysis to map inheritance of PSAC, Solute-inhibitor interactions in PSAC, Identification and characterization of PSAC mutants, Exploring solute requirements for parasite growth and solute restriction and the role of clag 3 associated genes in PSAC activity. He worked as an advisor for Grants and Grants Manager at the Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance Hyderabad from 2010-2017 before moving to NCCS in April 2017 to establish the Project Management Cell.