Top UK fellowship for Yusuf Hamied, other Indian scientists
Mumbai-born Hamied is a Padma Bhushan awardee, and is known for efforts to produce low-cost drugs to treat diabetes, cancer and other diseases.
Yusuf Hamied, scientist and chairman of Indian pharmaceutical major Cipla, has been awarded an honorary fellowship of the Royal Society, which is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence since the seventeenth century.
Nobel laureate Venki Ramakrishnan, who is president of the society, announced Hamied’s fellowship among other distinguished scientists from India and elsewhere for their exceptional contribution to science.
Mumbai-born Hamied is a Padma Bhushan awardee, and is known for efforts to produce low-cost drugs to treat diabetes, cancer and other diseases.
Other Indian scientists elected fellows in the 2019 intake are:
Gurdyal Besra, Bardrick Professor of Microbial Physiology and Chemistry, Institute of Microbiology and Infection, School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham;
Manjul Bhargava, R. Brandon Fradd Professor of Mathematics, Department of Mathematics, Princeton University;
Gagandeep Kang, Executive Director, Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, India;
Anant Parekh, Professor of Physiology, Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford;
Akshay Venkatesh, Professor, School of Mathematics, Institute for Advanced Study, US.
Ramakrishnan said: “Over the course of the Royal Society’s vast history, it is our Fellowship that has remained a constant thread and the substance from which our purpose has been realised: to use science for the benefit of humanity.”
“This year’s newly elected Fellows and Foreign Members of the Royal Society embody this, being drawn from diverse fields of enquiry - epidemiology, geometry, climatology - at once disparate, but also aligned in their pursuit and contributions of knowledge about the world in which we live, and it is with great honour that I welcome them as Fellows of the Royal Society.”