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 , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, ccessed 4 April 2013 Senior Group Leader at the

Cancer Research UK Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is the world's largest independent cancer research organization. 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 constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...

. He is recognised for his contributions in the field of

nucleic acid Nucleic acids are biopolymers, macromolecules, essential to all known forms of life. They are composed of nucleotides, which are the monomers made of three components: a 5-carbon sugar, a phosphate group and a nitrogenous base. The two main cl ...

s. He is scientific founder of Solexa and Cambridge Epigenetix.

Education

Born in

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

(now

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

)

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

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 cargo port in the Borough of Halton in Cheshire, England. Its population in 2011 was 61,789. The town is in the southeast of the Liverpool City Region, with Liverpool to the northwest across the River Mersey. ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

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

Natural Sciences Tripos The Natural Sciences Tripos (NST) 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, ...

Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge Fitzwilliam College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college traces its origins back to 1869 and 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 1985–88 and continued with a PhD for research on the reaction mechanism of the enzyme chorismate synthase supervised by

Chris Abell Christopher Abell (11 November 1957Abell, Prof Christopher. In ''Debrett's People of Today 2012'' (accessed 15 January 2012) ''(subscription required)'' – 26 October 2020) was a British biological chemist. He was Professor of Biological Chem ...

(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 Pennsylvan ...

(1991–1993). He started his independent academic career in 1994 in the University of Cambridge 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 The Cambridge Biomedical Campus is the largest centre of medical research and health science in Europe. The site is located at the southern end of Hills Road in Cambridge, England. Over 20,000 people work at the site, which is home to Cambridge ...

. His former doctoral students include

Julian Huppert Julian Leon Huppert (born 21 July 1978) is a Liberal Democrat politician in the United Kingdom and former Member of Parliament for Cambridge from 2010 to 2015. He succeeded David Howarth, who stood down after one term as an MP. At the 2015 gene ...

. 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, formerly GlaxoSmithKline plc, is a British multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with global headquarters in London, England. Established in 2000 by a merger of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham. GSK is the ten ...

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 (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 Ro ...

* 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 ...

* 2010

BBSRC Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation, is a non-departmental public body (NDPB), and is the largest UK public funder of non-medical bioscience. It predominantly funds scientific rese ...

Innovator of the Year * 2010

Commercial Innovator of the Year * 2011 Elected a

Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) is an award for medical scientists who are judged by the UK Academy of Medical Sciences for the "excellence of their science, their contribution to medicine and society and the range of th ...

(FMedSci) * 2012 Elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges 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 1,800 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 The Tetrahedron Prize for Creativity in Organic Chemistry or Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry is awarded annually by Elsevier, the publisher of Tetrahedron (journal), Tetrahedron Publications. It was established in 1980 and named in honour of the ...

* 2014

Biochemical Society The Biochemical Society is a learned society in the United Kingdom in the field of biochemistry, including all the cellular and molecular biosciences. Structure It currently has around 7000 members, two-thirds in the UK. It is affiliated with th ...

Heatley Medal and Prize * 2015

Chemical Research Society of India Chemical Research Society of India (CRSI) is an India based scientific society A learned society (; also learned academy, scholarly society, or academic association) is an organization that exists to promote an academic discipline, professio ...

Medal * 2017

knighted A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the Christian denomination, church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood ...

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 for "the most important ...

* 2020

Millennium Technology Prize The Millennium Technology Prize ( fi, Millennium-teknologiapalkinto) 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, ...

* 2022

Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences is a scientific award, funded by internet entrepreneurs Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan of Facebook; Sergey Brin of Google; entrepreneur and venture capitalist Yuri Milner; and Anne Wojcicki, one of the ...

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 biochemists