In 2002, when Professor S. Ramasubramanian argued that AIIMS Chennai needed a dedicated stroke unit, the case for time-sensitive stroke intervention had barely been made anywhere in Indian medicine — the prevailing wisdom was that stroke was something to be managed, not raced against. He built the unit anyway. Twenty-two years later, that model has been replicated in thirty-four centres nationally, and the clinical culture he had to argue for in 2002 is now simply how stroke is treated across South India.
"Stroke is the second leading cause of death in India. For twenty years, changing that has been the purpose of every hour I have spent in this laboratory."
His 2016 paper in The Lancet Neurology, examining thrombolysis outcomes across India's public hospital system rather than its elite private centres, has been cited more than 340 times — not because the finding was exotic, but because it was the first to ask the question in a setting most global research quietly ignores. It remains among the most-cited pieces of Indian clinical neurology of the decade.
The Padma Shri he received in 2022 sits alongside eighty-two published papers, twelve granted patents, and a tenure as President of the Indian Academy of Neurology — but the number he returns to most in conversation is forty-eight: the doctoral students he has personally taken from first year to completed thesis, several of whom now run stroke units of their own.
He served as President of the Indian Academy of Neurology from 2018 to 2020, and holds fellowships from the Royal College of Physicians, London, and the Indian National Science Academy — institutional recognitions that sit alongside, rather than in place of, the clinical work that earned them.
ICMR Distinguished Scientist Award for translational research in cerebrovascular disease. (2010).
Published work includes ""A Biomarker-Based Approach to Early Stroke Prediction: Development and Validation"" (Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases · 2022).
Director & Chief of Neurology, AIIMS Chennai; and President Elect, South Asian Stroke Organisation.
Stroke Medicine & Cerebrovascular Disease; Translational Neuroscience; and Health Systems & Policy.
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