Kamala Balakrishnan
The face of an older South Asian woman with short white hair. She is smiling.
Kamala Balakrishnan, from the website of the American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics.
BornJanuary 16, 1930
DiedAugust 7, 2018
Houston, Texas
Occupation(s)Military officer, medical researcher

Kamala Balakrishnan (January 16, 1930 – August 7, 2018) was an Indian military officer and immunologist. She was a lieutenant colonel in the Indian Armed Forces, president of the American Society of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics (ASHI), and director of the Transplantation Immunology Division at the Paul Hoxworth Blood Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Early life

Balakrishnan was born in 1930. She graduated from the Christian Medical College in Vellore, and completed a diploma in clinical pathology from the Armed Forces Medical College at Pune. She pursued further studies in immunology at the University of Birmingham, in 1967 and 1968.[1]

Career

Balakrishnan was a lieutenant colonel and senior medical officer in the Indian Armed Forces.[2] She established India's first histocompatibility laboratory, in New Delhi. She was awarded the Shakuntala Devi Amir Chand Award in 1971, and the Colonel Amir Chand Award in 1973, both from the Indian Council of Medical Research.[1] In the 1980s, she supported the work of the Bangalore Medical Services Trust, consulting on laboratory set up and personnel training for blood banks.[3]

In the United States, Balakrishnan was president of the American Society of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics from 1996 to 1997.[4] From 1981 to 2001, she was director of the Transplantation Immunology Division at the Paul Hoxworth Blood Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.[5][6] She was a professor of transfusion medicine at the University of Cincinnati,[1] and contributed to research articles in academic journals including The New England Journal of Medicine,[7] Lupus,[8] Nephron,[9] Transfusion,[10] Immunological Investigations,[11] Journal of Surgical Research,[12] and Human Immunology.[13] She also contributed to a textbook, Transfusion Immunology and Medicine (1995).[14]

Personal life

Balakrishnan was married to a fellow military officer, Vataranyan Balakrishnan;[15] they had two sons. She died in 2018, at a hospital in Houston, Texas.[5] There are photographs of Balakrishnan in the University of Cincinnati Medical School/University Hospital Public Relations Photographic Collection at the Henry R. Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions in Cincinnati.[16]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Chattopadhyay, Anjana (2018). Women Scientists in India: Lives, Struggles, and Achievements (PDF). National Book Trust of India. ISBN 978-81-237-8144-0.
  2. ↑ Directorate of Printing, Government of India (1957-02-16). Gazette of India, 1957, No. 200. p. 39 – via Internet Archive.
  3. ↑ Bangalore Medical Services Trust, Annual Report, April 2017 to March 2018, page 31, 33.
  4. ↑ "ASHI Presidents". American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
  5. 1 2 "In Memoriam - Dr. Kamala Balakrishnan". American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics. August 8, 2018. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
  6. ↑ Pugh, Tony (1986-06-06). "Children's Hospital Research Shows Gene-Kidney Disease Link". The Cincinnati Enquirer. p. 25. Retrieved 2020-10-09 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ↑ Welch, Thomas R.; Beischel, Linda; Balakrishnan, Kamala; Quinlan, Monica; West, Clark D. (1986-06-05). "Major-Histocompatibility-Complex Extended Haplotypes in Membranoproliferative Glomerulonephritis". New England Journal of Medicine. 314 (23): 1476–1481. doi:10.1056/NEJM198606053142303. ISSN 0028-4793. PMID 3458025.
  8. ↑ Adams, Louis E.; Balakrishnan, Kamala; Roberts, Stephen M.; Belcher, Rick; Mongey, Anne-Barbara; Thomas, T. J.; Hess, Evelyn V. (2016-07-02). "Genetic, Immunologic and Biotransformation Studies of Patients on Procainamide". Lupus. 2 (2): 89–98. doi:10.1177/096120339300200205. PMID 8330041. S2CID 45020391.
  9. ↑ Sridhar, Nagaraja R.; Munda, Rino; Balakrishnan, Kamala; First, Roy (1992). "Evaluation of Flowcytometric Crossmatching in Renal Allograft Recipients". Nephron. 62 (3): 262–266. doi:10.1159/000187056. ISSN 1660-8151. PMID 1436335.
  10. ↑ McGill, Manley; Balakrishnan, Kamala; Meier, Terry; Mayhaus, Charles; Whitacre, Lynn; Greenwalt, Tibor (1986). "Blood product irradiation recommendations". Transfusion. 26 (6): 542–543. doi:10.1046/j.1537-2995.1986.26687043623.x. ISSN 1537-2995. PMID 3775838. S2CID 2693157.
  11. ↑ Balakrishnan, Kamala; Adams, Louis E. (1995-01-01). "The Role of the Lymphocyte in an Immune Response". Immunological Investigations. 24 (1–2): 233–244. doi:10.3109/08820139509062775. ISSN 0882-0139. PMID 7713585.
  12. ↑ Johnson, Christopher P.; Munda, Rino; Balakrishnan, Kamala; Alexander, J.Wesley (June 1984). "Donor-specific blood transfusions with stored and fresh blood in a rat heart allograft model". Journal of Surgical Research. 36 (6): 532–534. doi:10.1016/0022-4804(84)90138-0. PMID 6374290.
  13. ↑ Adams, Louis E; Balakrishnan, Kamala; Malik, Shahid; Mongey, Anne-Barbara; Whitacre, Lynn; Hess, Evelyn V (March 1998). "Genetic and Immunologic Studies of Patients on Procainamide". Human Immunology. 59 (3): 158–168. doi:10.1016/S0198-8859(98)00005-6. PMID 9548075.
  14. ↑ Oss, Carel J. van (1995-01-27). Transfusion Immunology and Medicine. CRC Press. ISBN 978-0-8247-9640-2.
  15. ↑ Webb, Robert (1984-08-02). "New Era for Indian Villages". The Cincinnati Enquirer. p. 16. Retrieved 2020-10-09 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. ↑ "Finding aid for the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine/University Hospital Public Relations Photographic Collection". OhioLink. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
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