Balakrishnan was a
lieutenant colonel and senior medical officer in the Indian Armed Forces. She established India's first
histocompatibility laboratory, in
New Delhi. She was awarded the Shakuntala Devi Amir Chand Award in 1971, and the Colonel Amir Chand Award in 1973, both from the
Indian Council of Medical Research. In the United States, Balakrishnan was president of the American Society of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics from 1996 to 1997. From 1981 to 2001, she was director of the Transplantation Immunology Division at the Paul Hoxworth Blood Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. She was a professor of
transfusion medicine at the
University of Cincinnati,
Lupus, Nephron,
Transfusion, Immunological Investigations,
Journal of Surgical Research, and
Human Immunology. She also contributed to a textbook,
Transfusion Immunology and Medicine (1995). == Personal life ==