1. Sir Shankar Balasubramanian was born on 30 September 1966 and is an Indian-born British chemist and Herchel Smith Professor of Medicinal Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, Senior Group Leader at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Shankar Balasubramanian is recognised for his contributions in the field of nucleic acids.
Shankar Balasubramanian is scientific founder of Solexa and biomodal.
Shankar Balasubramanian grew up in a rural area just outside Runcorn, Cheshire, and attended Daresbury Primary School, then Appleton Hall High School.
Shankar Balasubramanian went on to study the Natural Sciences Tripos at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, where he did his undergraduate degree from 1985 to 1988 and continued with a PhD for research on the reaction mechanism of the enzyme chorismate synthase supervised by Chris Abell.
Shankar Balasubramanian began his independent academic career in 1994 at the University of Cambridge and has remained there ever since, first as College Lecturer, then University Lecturer, University Reader in Chemical Biology and Professor of Chemical Biology.
Shankar Balasubramanian was most recently appointed Herchel Smith Professor of Medicinal Chemistry in 2008.
Shankar Balasubramanian currently directs research laboratories in the Department of Chemistry and the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.
Shankar Balasubramanian is an internationally recognised leader in the field of nucleic acids who is distinguished for pioneering contributions to chemistry and its application to the biological and medical sciences.
Shankar Balasubramanian is a principal inventor of the leading next generation sequencing methodology, Solexa sequencing, that has made routine, accurate, low-cost sequencing of human genomes a reality and has revolutionised biology.
Shankar Balasubramanian has made seminal contributions to the identification, elucidation and manipulation of non-coding genetic elements, particularly four-stranded structures called G-quadruplexes.