Dr. M. Balasubramanyam, (PhD., MNASc., FAPASc) is at present Dean of Research Studies & Senior Scientist at the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation (MDRF), Chennai, India. He obtained his PhD degree in 1987 from Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati. During 1991 to 1995, he worked as a Post-Doctoral Scientist at the Hypertension Research Center of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ), Newark, USA on “Cell signaling & Molecular Medicine aspects with special reference to diabetes’. During 1996-99, he served as a faculty at the Center for Biotechnology, Anna University, Chennai. He joined the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation in 1999 and instrumental in many of its academic developments including infrastructure capacity building for basic/clinical sciences and translational studies. He has over 115 original research publications and many awards to his credit. He edited a few special volumes on recent trends in diabetes research in Current Science as well as Indian Journal of Medical Research. He is also an elected Member of the Asia-Pacific International Molecular Biology Network (A-IMBN), Member of the National Academy of Sceinces (MNASc), Fellow of Andhra Pradesh Akademi of Sciences (FAPASc), Fellow of the Indian Association of Biomedical Scientists (IABMS) and Secretary of the Madras Science Foundation (MSF). He has received the prestigious ‘Endeavour Executive Fellowship’ from the Education Department of Govt. of Australia. Dr.Balu serves as an Expert Committee member in many funding agencies of Govt. of India. He is a strong supporter of all components of DST-INSPIRE programs and served as an Expert Committee Member –Southern Region for DST-INSPIRE Fellows. His laboratory research integrates physiological and pharmacological approaches with biochemical and molecular biological techniques (transcriptomics, miRNA, RNAi, epigenetics, metagenomic, metabolomics) to study mechanisms underlying development and progression of diabetes and its associated complications. Under his leadership, his research team has meticulously utilized and transformed the Diabetes-based epidemiological studies in to successful molecular epidemiology investigations and demonstrated ‘the clinical significance and subclinical relevance of cellular stress signals (oxidative stress, inflammation, ER stress, miRNA dysregulation, accelerated senescence and telomere shortening) in patients with Type 2 diabetes.

Dr. M. Balasubramanyam research interests are Stem cell applications including immunomodulation; Unraveling mechanisms of hyperglycemic memory, Role of Endocrine Disruptors in diabetes; Bioprospecting herbal molecules; Investigations to expose molecular benefits of Yoga; Non-invasive point-of-care (POC) clinical measures and medical devices. He is a visiting fellow of several international institutions including Deakin University, Australia; Seoul National University, South Korea; University of Warwick, UK & Denmark and continues to foster and advance in diabetes research by establishing international collaborative research initiatives. Dr.Balasubramanyam serves as Member Secretary of the Institutional Human Ethics Committee of MDRF for more than a decade. He is an active reviewer of research grants/projects/manuscripts both at the national and international level. Dr.Balu’s team is one of the very strong groups working on Molecular Aspects of Metabolic Disorders in the country.