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Dinesh Patel endows chemistry fellowship at Rutgers
The donation will support graduate researchers from the same lab that Patel worked in during his time at the university.
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Malvika Choudhary - Tue, 27, Jan 2026
- 16:26 EST
- 23
Dinesh and Rajeshvari Patel / sas.rutgers.edu
Biotech executive Dinesh Patel and his wife, Rajeshvari Patel, have established a graduate fellowship to support organic chemistry students at Rutgers University.
The gift establishes the Dinesh and Rajeshvari Patel endowed graduate fellowship, which will provide financial support to graduate students in the department of chemistry and chemical biology at the School of Arts and Sciences.
Also Read: Mahesh Samdani donates $1M to BITS Pilani
Patel earned his doctorate from Rutgers in 1984 and is now the chief executive officer of Protagonist Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company developing treatments for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.
The fellowship is directed to the laboratory of professor Spencer Knapp, who supervised Patel’s doctoral work and remains one of the university’s longest-serving chemistry faculty members.
The university said the fellowship is intended both to support research in organic and medicinal chemistry and to recognize Knapp’s role in training young scientists.
Knapp, now in his 48th year at Rutgers, has mentored more than 200 graduate students and has contributed to research on diseases including Alzheimer’s, malaria and inflammatory disorders.
Lawrence Williams, chair of the department of chemistry and chemical biology, said the Patels chose to focus their gift on Knapp’s lab because they see their own careers as shaped by that training environment.
“We can never forget the extent to which we benefited from the support we received at Rutgers,” Dinesh Patel said. “It will be so satisfying to see future students benefit in the same way.”
Rajeshvari Patel, who earned her master’s degree from Rutgers in 1985, said the fellowship is intended to ease financial pressure on students so they can focus on research and training.
The fellowship comes as federal funding for graduate research faces growing pressure. Knapp said support for graduate students has become increasingly scarce, particularly for international students.
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