Mukherjee was born in a village (Champarui) in the state of West Bengal in eastern India. Mukherjee received his elementary and high school education from the village school followed by completing a Bachelor in Science with chemistry honors and Master in Science with organic chemistry specialization at the University of Burdwan, West Bengal, India. Mukherjee received his PhD from the University of Poona followed by postdoctoral study in the Department of Chemistry at Texas Christian University (Mentor: Jeffrey L Coffer) and in the Department of Surgery and Tissues Engineering at the Children’s Hospital Boston (Mentor: Anthony Atala). Mukherjee then joined Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN and rose to the rank of Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering. Mukherjee joined OUHSC in 2013 as a Full Professor and Peggy and Charles Stephenson Endowed Chair in Laboratory Cancer Research.
Mukherjee is currently a Professor of Pathology and Peggy and Charles Stephenson Endowed Chair in Laboratory Cancer Research. He is an Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust (TSET) Scholar. He also serves as the Senior Director for Research Partnership and Collaboration as well as the Co-Director of the Nanomedicine Program at the Stephenson Cancer Center at OUHSC. Mukherjee received the George Lynn Cross Research Professorship, the highest research and creative activity honor at the University of Oklahoma; The Stanton L. Young Research Excellence Award, the highest research excellence award at the College of Medicine at OUHSC, Fred G. Silva Award from the Department of Pathology, OUHSC, the Presbyterian Health Foundation Presidential Professorship OUHSC, and the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Society of American Asian Scientists in Cancer Research (2018). Mukherjee is an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, National Academy of Inventors, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Controlled Release Society and Foreign Fellow of Indian National Science Academy. He has also been elected as the Chair Elect, College of Fellows, AIMBE 2025 and Chair, College of Fellows, AIMBE 2026. Mukherjee serves as a Mentor as well as Member of Fellow Advisory Council for the National Academy of Inventors. He also served in the Board of Directors of the Association of American Indian Scientists in Cancer Research (2018 – 2021).
Research: Mukherjee’s research is centered at the interface between biology and materials science to address unmet challenges in human diseases. Mukherjee pioneered the concept of self-therapeutic nanoparticles, currently being utilized to discover molecular targets for personalized medicine. More than a decade ago Mukherjee also demonstrated that the protein corona formation around nanoparticles could be harnessed to identify therapeutic targets in cancer. Mukherjee demonstrated fundamental aspects of cell-nanomaterial interactions and utilized such scientific understanding to develop designer nanoformulations for targeted therapies. Mukherjee also developed organo-inorganic hybrid nanomaterials, termed ‘auroliposme and aurniosove’ as a general nucleic acid delivery system. He discovered regulators of macropinocytosis and studied their roles in normal and pathophysiology. Mukherjee also deciphered how H2S-producing enzymes rewire mitochondrial morphogenesis in cancer and endothelial biology. Mukherjee, furthermore, discovered a glycolytic switch responsible for poor prognoses in ovarian cancer. Mukherjee has published >150 peer reviewed articles, and has >27,000 citations with an h-Index of 70.