Mahendralal Sarkar CIE was a Bengali medical doctor (MD), the second MD graduated from the Calcutta Medical College, social reformer, and propagator of scientific studies in nineteenth-century India. He was the founder of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science.

Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS) is a public, deemed, research university for higher education and research in basic sciences under the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India. Established on 29 July 1876 by Mahendralal Sarkar, a private medical practitioner, it focuses on fundamental research in basic sciences. It is Asia's oldest research institute located at Jadavpur, South Kolkata near Jadavpur University, Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute and Indian Institute of Chemical Biology. It is spread over a limited area of 9.5 acres and currently in the process of building an advanced SMART campus at Baruipur.