Professor Mahalakshmi Radhakrishnan is originally from Coimbatore, India. She studied Biochemistry at Bharathiar University (BSc, 2000) and Molecular Biophysics at the Indian Institute of Science (PhD, 2006). Her doctoral research focused on designing peptide scaffolds with defined structural geometries of aromatic interactions. Following two short postdoctoral stints in structural biology in San Diego, USA, she returned to India in mid-2009 and established the Molecular Biophysics Unit at IISER Bhopal. She initiated one of the earliest studies in India on the biophysical characterization of β-barrel outer membrane proteins (OMPs) from bacteria and mitochondria.

For her numerous contributions, Professor Mahalakshmi has received the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar: Vigyan Yuva – Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award, and has been elected Fellow of all three Indian science academies: INSA, IAS, and NASI. She is also a recipient of the Wellcome–DBT Intermediate and Senior Fellowships, the SwarnaJayanti Fellowship, and the S. Ramachandran National Bioscience Award for Career Development, among several other honors and recognitions.

She currently heads the MiND Laboratory at Krea University, where her research focuses on two major areas: (i) the folding, function, energetics, and engineering of mitochondrial and bacterial OMPs; and (ii) the design and development of peptidomimetics as next-generation antibacterials, along with targeted OMP inhibitors for cancer and neurodegenerative diseases.