Presidents of 'THE INDIAN SOCIETY OF HUMAN GENETICS'
Dr. V. Balakrishnan, M.Sc. - 1991-92
V. Balakrishnan is a
name known to every one who knows population genetics and there would be
no population geneticist or physical anthropologist in India who would
not have used the distance measure that goes by his name and his mentor,
namely the Balakrishnan - Sanghvi distance, or any group in India who
would not have sought his advice or help in the analysis of their
genetics data. Such is the popularity gained by him by sheer dint of
hard work, application, and helpful nature, not withstanding his very
frank and occasionally harsh pieces of advice.
With the M.Sc. in Mathematical statistics, Balakrishnan joined the Human
variation group of Dr Sanghvi at the Cancer Research Institute in 1959
and soon became an integral part of the group, responsible for planning
and for analysis of all studies that were conducted by the Group. And in
these years Balakrishnan was entirely a self taught man, be it genetics
or computer programming. In addition to the Distance measure for
attribute and allele frequency data. Balakrishnan also introduced
methodology for combining methodology for hybrid analysis among
populations. Early by 1965 itself Balakrishnan prepared a series
computer programmes on the maximum livelihood estimation of gene
frequencies and the distance and phylogenetic analysis. Another major
contribution from him is the analysis of ABO and Rh allele frequencies
of 102 Indian population groups and explaining their structure as a
result of admixture of 10 basic racial/ethic elements.
Balakrishnan has published about 100 papers and two monographs. He has
been elected four times to the Governing Council of ISHG and has been a
pillar of strength serving it as Treasurer, Secretary and eventually as
its President.
