Lalita Ramakrishnan, a Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge has recently been elected Fellow of the Royal Society (2018). On admissions day Carlton House Terrace in London the Ramakrishnan family, which is a family of professors rejoiced the new admission and Lalita was welcomed into the Society by brother Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, who won the Nobel Prize in 2009 for his work on ribosomal structure, was knighted by the Queen in 2012 and is currently president of the Royal Society.
Lalita studies tuberculosis disease pathogenesis in the zebrafish. The zebrafish is reportedly genetically tractable and optically transparent enabling the manipulation and monitoring of infection in real-time. The use of the zebrafish has led to surprising discoveries about TB that have immediate clinical implications.
Lalita did her medical training in India, then went to the US where she did a PhD in Immunology, medical residency and clinical fellowship in infectious diseases followed by a postdoctoral fellowship with Stanley Falkow at Stanford University where she first began her TB research. In 2001, she joined the medical faculty of the University of Washington.
In 2014 she moved to the University of Cambridge where she is the Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, and a Principal Research Fellow of the Wellcome Trust. Lalita was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 2015. In the US, Lalita was also a practising physician, working as an Infectious Diseases consultant at the University of Washington Hospital. She hopes to continue to use her clinical skills in the UK pending approval from the General Medical Council. She lives in Cambridge, UK like her brother Prof Venki.
