Dorairajan Balasubramanian

Dorairajan Balasubramanian was born on 28 August 1939 in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. He graduated in Chemistry (BSc) from Madras University in 1957 and secured his master's degree (MSc) in Chemistry with first rank in 1959 from BITS, Pilani. He moved to the United States in 1960 for researching for his doctoral studies and completed it in 1965 to obtain PhD in biophysical chemistry from Columbia University. He continued in the United States for his post doctoral research as a Jane Coffin Childs Fund Fellow at the University of Minnesota Medical School till 1966. Balasubramanian returned to India in 1966 and joined the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur as a lecturer where he rose in ranks over the years to become an assistant professor and a professor. In 1977, he was appointed as the professor and dean of the School of Chemistry at the University of Hyderabad where he worked till 1982 when he took up the post of the deputy director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology. He retired from the institution as its director in 1998 and moved to L. V. Prasad Eye Institute where he is the director of research of Prof. Brien Holden Eye Research Centre. He also serves as the visiting professor at the University of New South Wales, Sydney and as the adjunct professor of Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India. Balasubramanian is married to Shakti who is associated with ETV as a producer and the couple has two daughters. The elder daughter, Katyayani is a research analyst and the younger one, Akhila works as a public health professional. The family lives in Hyderabad. ==Positions==

Balasubramanian is a visiting scientist at the National Eye Institute, Bethesda and is a senior Fellow of ophthalmology at the University of Melbourne. the International Basic Sciences Panel of UNESCO and the International Chapter Affiliate Committee of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), United States. ==Legacy==

Balasubramanian started his research activities in 1965 focusing on the structure and functions of proteins and polypeptides and worked on the thermodynamic analysis of their stability. His research revealed how cataract is caused when crystallins are damaged photochemically, thereby leading to diminished lenticular transparency. of the blindness in the world. Ginko Biloba and Withania somnifera extracts. These substances contained antioxidants and cytoprotective compounds which slow down the progression of oxidative cataract and this was verified during experiments in animals. with a sampling set of over 400 families and this has helped in revealing 15 mutations in the gene CYP1B1, with mutation R368H being the most common one. He and his group have been successful in isolating the adult stem cells found in the limbus, around the cornea, and culturing them on human amniotic membrane. He is credited with over 450 articles, and Microsoft Academic Search, an online repository of scientific articles, has listed 52 of them. He has presented more than 170 scientific papers On the academic front, he has assisted 16 doctoral students in their PhD studies. His efforts are also reported behind the establishment of a vaccine unit at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology and in designing a quality improvement program for the Sericulture Laboratory of the state government. ==Awards and recognitions==

Dorairajan Balasubramanian, an honorary Professor of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, is an elected member of Indian National Science Academy (INSA), Indian Academy of Sciences (IAS), National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI), Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, and the next year, he received Goyal Prize of the Goyal Research Foundation and J. C. Bose Medal of the Indian National Science Academy (INSA). The Government of India honoured him with the civilian award of Padma Shri in 2002. The Government of France followed suit with the Chevalier de l’Ordre National de Merite, the same year. He received a third award in 2002 from the Department of Science and Technology, the National Prize for Science Popularization. He is also a recipient of the INSA Indira Gandhi Prize and the Jawaharlal Nehru Centenary Award for Achievement in Science of the Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA). ==See also==