Mallampati was born in
Madras Province,
British India in 1941. In 1968, he studied medicine at
Andhra Medical College, the oldest such college in the state. In 1971, he emigrated to the United States and began his training in anesthesiology at the
Lahey Clinic in
Boston, Massachusetts. In 1985, alongside his colleagues, he published a paper in the Journal of the Canadian Anesthesia Society that involved 210 patients and studied the correlation between decreased visualisation of the soft palate, faucial pillars and uvula, and its association with the difficulty of intubation. The study showed an inverse correlation and Mallampati proposed an eponymous classification to determine the ease of intubation. Mallampati died on 9 February 2026, at the age of 85. ==Notable publications==