Dorairajan Balasubramanian

Dorairajan Balasubramanian, popularly known as Professor Balu, is an Indian biophysical chemist and ocular biochemist. He is a former President of Indian Academy of Sciences and a director of research at the Prof. Brien Holden Eye Research Centre of L. V. Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad. A recipient of the National Order of Merit (France), Balasubramanian was honored by the Government of India, in 2002, with the fourth highest Indian civilian award of Padma Shri.

Biography Dorairajan Balasubramanian was born on 28 August 1939 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. 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).