Sir Shankar Balasubramanian (born 30 September 1966) is an Indian-born British chemist and Herchel Smith Professor of Medicinal Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, ccessed 4 April 2013 Senior Group Leader at the

Cancer Research UK Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is the world's largest independent cancer research organisation. It is registered as a charity in the United Kingdom and Isle of Man, and was formed on 4 February 2002 by the merger of The Cancer Research Campaign and t ...

Cambridge Institute and Fellow of

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...

. He is recognised for his contributions in the field of

nucleic acid Nucleic acids are large biomolecules that are crucial in all cells and viruses. They are composed of nucleotides, which are the monomer components: a pentose, 5-carbon sugar, a phosphate group and a nitrogenous base. The two main classes of nuclei ...

s. He is scientific founder of Solexa and biomodal (formally Cambridge Epigenetix).

Education

Born in

Madras Chennai, also known as Madras ( its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian ce ...

(now

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

)

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

in 1966, Shankar Balasubramanian moved to the UK with his parents in 1967. He grew up in a rural area just outside

Runcorn Runcorn is an industrial town and Runcorn Docks, cargo port in the Borough of Halton, Cheshire, England. Runcorn is on the south bank of the River Mersey, where the estuary narrows to form the Runcorn Gap. It is upstream from the port of Live ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

, and attended Daresbury Primary School, then Appleton Hall High School (which has since amalgamated to form Bridgewater High School). He went on to study the

Natural Sciences Tripos The Natural Sciences Tripos is the framework within which most of the science at the University of Cambridge is taught. The tripos includes a wide range of Natural Sciences from physics, astronomy, and geoscience, to chemistry and biology, whi ...

Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge Fitzwilliam College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college has origins from 1869, with the foundation of the Non-Collegiate Students Board, a venture intended to offer academically excellent students of all ...

, where he did his undergraduate degree from 1985 to 1988 and continued with a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

for research on the

reaction mechanism In chemistry, a reaction mechanism is the step by step sequence of elementary reactions by which overall chemical reaction occurs. A chemical mechanism is a theoretical conjecture that tries to describe in detail what takes place at each stage ...

of the enzyme chorismate synthase supervised by Chris Abell (1988–1991).

Career and research

Following his PhD, Balasubramanian travelled to the United States as a SERC/NATO Research Fellow and worked in the group of Stephen J. Benkovic at

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...

(1991–1993). He began his independent academic career in 1994 at the

and has remained there ever since, first as College Lecturer, then University Lecturer (1998), University Reader in Chemical Biology (2003) and Professor of Chemical Biology (2007). He was most recently appointed Herchel Smith Professor of Medicinal Chemistry in 2008. He currently directs research laboratories in the Department of Chemistry and also the

(CRUK) Cambridge Institute at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. His former doctoral students include Julian Huppert. Balasubramanian works in the field of

s. His citation on election to the Royal Society reads: More recently Balasubramanian has been inventing and applying new chemical methods to study epigenetic changes to DNA bases including single base resolution sequencing of 5-formylcytosine, 5-hydroxymethylcytosine and 5-methylcytosine.

Honours and awards

Honours and awards include: * 1998

Glaxo Wellcome GSK plc (an acronym from its former name GlaxoSmithKline plc) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational Pharmaceutics, pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with headquarters in London. It was established in 2000 by a Mergers an ...

Award for Innovative Organic Chemistry * 2002 Corday–Morgan Medal and Prize of the

Royal Society of Chemistry The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a learned society and professional association in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemistry, chemical sciences". It was formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the ...

* 2009 Royal Society

Mullard Award The Mullard Award is awarded annually by the Royal Society to a person who has "an outstanding academic record in any field of natural science, engineering or technology and whose contribution is currently making or has the potential to make a co ...

* 2010 BBSRC Innovator of the Year * 2010 BBSRC Commercial Innovator of the Year * 2011 Elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) * 2012 Elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

(FRS) * 2012 Elected a member of the

European Molecular Biology Organization The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) is a professional, non-profit organization of more than 2,100 life scientists. Its goal is to promote research in life science and enable international exchange between scientists. It co-funds cour ...

(EMBO) * 2013 Tetrahedron Prize * 2014 Biochemical Society Heatley Medal and Prize * 2015

Chemical Research Society of India Chemical Research Society of India (CRSI) is an India based scientific society dedicated to the field of chemistry. It was established in 1999 as a part of celebrating India's 50th anniversary of independence Independence is a conditi ...

Medal * 2017 Appointed

Knight Bachelor The title of Knight Bachelor is the basic rank granted to a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not inducted as a member of one of the organised Order of chivalry, orders of chivalry; it is a part of the Orders, decorations, and medals ...

in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to science and medicine. * 2018

Royal Medal The Royal Medal, also known as The Queen's Medal and The King's Medal (depending on the gender of the monarch at the time of the award), is a silver-gilt medal, of which three are awarded each year by the Royal Society. Two are given for "the mo ...

* 2020

Millennium Technology Prize The Millennium Technology Prize () is one of the world's largest technology prizes. It is awarded once every two years by Technology Academy Finland, an independent foundation established by Finnish industries, academic institutions, and the st ...

* 2022 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences * 2023 Elected international member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

* 2024

Canada Gairdner International Award The Canada Gairdner International Award is given annually by the Gairdner Foundation at a special dinner to five individuals for outstanding discoveries or contributions to medical science. Receipt of the Gairdner is traditionally considered a ...

Canada Gairdner International Award 2024
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Balasubramanian, Shankar 1966 births Living people Scientists from Chennai Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge Indian emigrants to the United Kingdom Members of the European Molecular Biology Organization Alumni of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge British biochemists Fellows of the Royal Society Members of the University of Cambridge Department of Chemistry Knights Bachelor Tamil scientists