KK Balasubramanian obtained his PhD degree (1965) from the University of Madras with specialization in organic chemistry. He was Professor, Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras; During his career he held a Senior Research Fellowship of the Humboldt Foundation at the University Braunschweig (1977-78) and the University of Karlsruhe (1984-85).

Academic and Research Achievements: Balasubramanian has demonstrated the utility, for the first time, of Mitsunobu coupling reaction for synthesizing tertiary mechanism of this reaction in (2.2.1) bicyclic alcohols using deuterium labeling. He discovered some interesting transformations on the cathodic reduction of Beta-chlorviny1 aldehydes and successfully used this electrochemical tool for achieving selective transformation in multi-functional systems which are either difficult to realize or which so far have not been achieved by chemical methods.

Awards and Honours: Balasubramanian received TR Govindachari 60th Birthday Commemoration Award, the Fr Yedanapalli Memorial Lecture (1987) and S Swaminathan 60th Birthday Commemoratin Lecture of INSA (2000). He is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore.