page_title: Dorairajan Balasubramanian
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Dorairajan Balasubramanian / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Luxembourg City: remarkable Gingko at place Dargent. Français&#160;: Luxembourg-ville&#160;: Ginkgo remarquable à la place Dargent, quartier d'Eich. Lëtzebuergesch: Stad Lëzebuerg: Bemierkenswäerte Ginkgo op der Eecherplaz.
context_page_description: Dorairajan Balasubramanian, popularly known as Professor Balu, is an Indian biophysical chemist and ocular biochemist. He is a former President of Indian Academy of Sciences and a Director of Research at the Prof. Brien Holden Eye Research Centre of L. V. Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad. A recipient of the National Order of Merit, Balasubramanian was honored by the Government of India, in 2002, with the fourth highest Indian civilian award of Padma Shri
context_section_description: Balasubramanian started his research activities in 1965 focusing on the structure and functions of proteins and polypeptides and worked on the thermodynamic analysis of their stability. The focus of his research changed in 1984/85 when he started to work on ocular science and concentrated on crystallins of eye lens and their function as an agent in keeping the lens transparent. His research revealed how cataract is caused when crystallins are damaged photochemically, thereby leading to diminished lenticular transparency. He argued that the oxidative stress on the lens induces covalent chemical changes in the constituent molecules and these changes lead to cataract. He researched further on the subject to find out that, by supplementing antioxidants and cytoprotective substances, the progression of cataract can be slowed down. These findings are known to have introduced a prophylactic approach to addressing the issue of cataract, which is reported to be the causal factor for 47.9 percent of the blindness in the world. Further, he attempted to identify the cataractostatic agents and proposed the benefits of tea polyphenols, Ginko Biloba and Withania somnifera extracts. These substances contained antioxidants and cytoprotective compounds which slow down the progression of oxidative cataract and this was verified during experiments in animals.
  After the turn of the century, Balasubramanian and his colleagues started working on inherited eye diseases and their molecular genetics. The group carried out research on diseases such as congenital glaucoma with a sampling set of over 400 families and this has helped in revealing 15 mutations in the gene CYP1B1, with mutation R368H being the most common one. The research has also recorded the genotype-phenotype correlations and the structural changes occur in mutated protein and these findings have assisted in clinical prediction of the disease and in early therapeutic intervention to avert blindness.
  Balasubramanian is now working on stem cell biology and its use in restoring lost vision. He and his group have been successful in isolating the adult stem cells found in the limbus, around the cornea, and culturing them on human amniotic membrane. These cultured stem cells were, later, used to produce corneal epithelia that can be stitched on to human eye. Clinical tests on 200 patients who lost eyesight due to chemical or fire burns returned significantly good results with vision restoration to 20/20 levels, with or without subsequent corneal grafts or transplantation. These tests are reported to be the largest successful human trial of adult stem cell therapy in the world.
  Balasubramanian has published 6 books of which two books, one on chemistry and the other in biotechnology, are prescribed text books for academic studies. He is credited with over 450 articles, published in peer reviewed national and international journals and Microsoft Academic Search, an online repository of scientific articles, has listed 52 of them. He has presented more than 170 scientific papers and has contributed in popularizing science by writing columns in leading newspapers such as The Hindu and The Times of India since 1980. On the academic front, he has assisted 16 doctoral students in their PhD studies. His efforts are also reported behind the establishment of a vaccine unit at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology and in designing a quality improvement program for the Sericulture Laboratory of the state government.
caption: Ginko tree
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