Kalyanasundara Bhaskaran completed his PhD from the University of London (1956). His areas of specialization were Microbiology and Bacterial Genetics. Baskaran was a Professor of Microbiology at the All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health, Kolkata, and held the position of Scientist at the Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow. He was Leverhulme Visiting Fellow at University of Adelaide during 1967 to 1968.

Academic and Research Achievements: Bhaskaran discovered sexual mating in Vibrio cholerae in which a plasmid (p factor) was seen to confer fertility. He found that Conjugation frequency was enhanced by a brief exposure of male strains to an elevated temperature (44.5°C). His studies paved the way for chromosomal mapping in V cholerae and for evaluating antibacterial / antitoxic immune mechanism in experimental cholera.

Awards and Honours: K Bhaskaran received the YS Narayana Rao Oration Award of the ICMR (1972). He was a Fellow of the National Academy of Medical Sciences (India) and Member of the WHO Advisory Panel on Bacterial Diseases.