Kalpana Balakrishnan | |
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 Balakrishnan in 2012 | |
| Alma mater | Johns Hopkins University All India Institute of Medical Sciences |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research |
| Thesis | Sulfhydral reagents regulate and modulate the cGMP-dependent cation channel of bovine rod photoreceptors (1990) |
Kalpana Balakrishnan is an Indian medical researcher who is a professor and Dean (Research) at theSri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research. Her research has been in the area of air pollution and environmental health risk assessments with a special focus on low and middle income countries. She is an elected member of theNational Academy of Medical Sciences.
Balakrishnan grew up in India.[1] She was an undergraduate student at theAll India Institute of Medical Sciences. She was a doctoral researcher in biophysics atJohns Hopkins University, where she also worked as a postdoctoral researcher. Her doctorate considered the role of sulfhydral reagents in the regulation and modulation of cyclic nucleotide-gated channels.[2] During her postdoctoral research, she became increasingly interested in public health, learning about health economics and population dynamics.[1]
Balakrishnan returned to India in 1996.[1] She has spent much of her career at theSri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research. Balakrishnan works on air pollution and environmental risk assessments. Her early research considered the health risks from exposure tochromium.[1] She performed occupational and population level environmental assessments, developed solutions and made recommendations for policy changes.[1] She uses mother-child cohort studies and randomized controlled trials to examine the effectiveness of air pollution interventions on early childhood and cardiovascular outcomes. Her research revealed that exposure to fine particulate matter caused lower birthweights in newborn babies and advocated for a shift toLPG as a fuel.[1]
As Dean of theSri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research, Balakrishnan signed amemorandum of understanding withColorado State University to offer joint programmes between the United States and India.[3]
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