Prof. P. Balaram

Professor and former Director, Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, India. Balaram is the recipient of several prestigious national and international awards such as – Padma Bhushan (2014), Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award (1986) and the Third World Academy of Science (TWAS) (1994). He received his bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Fergusson College, University of Pune, followed by a Masters degree from the Indian Institute of Technology and Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University. After a postdoctoral stint at Harvard University with Nobel laureate Robert Burns Woodward, he returned to the Indian Institute of Science, where he has been ever since as a faculty member in the Molecular Biophysics Unit. During his PhD, While at Harvard he worked on the synthesis of the antibiotic erythromycin. Ge was the editor of the journal Current Science till 2013.