Director General, Indian Council of Medical Research cum Secretary, Department of Health Research, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India
Professor (Dr) Balram Bhargava was born in Lucknow, 21st July 1961. He is an outstanding cardiologist, one of the foremost leaders in biomedical innovation, public health, medical education and medical research. He directs the School of International Biodesign at AIIMS, an interdisciplinary programme to foster innovation and design of low-cost implants and devices which has led to more than thirty patents on low cost medical devices and a dozen startups. He developed the indigenous Platinum Iridium coil coronary stent and has been instrumental in clinically evaluating and establishing medicated Indian stents. He is an innovator par excellence with innovations touching everyday lives with very huge social impact for which he has started the Society for Less Investigative Medicine (SLIM). He is currently providing leadership for creative disease prevention, early detection and transport system for sick cardiac patients; mission DELHI (Delhi Emergency Life Heart-attack Initiative) by trained motorcycle first respondent paramedics.

Professor  Bhargava has been awarded the SN Bose Centenary Award by the Indian National Science Congress, the National Academy of Sciences Platinum Jubilee Award, the Tata Innovation Fellowship the Ranbaxy Award, OP Bhasin Award, Vasvik Award and more recently the UNESCO Equatorial Guinea Prize for Life Sciences. Dr. LEE Jong-Wook Memorial Prize for Public Health, 2019 by WHO Hqrs, Geneva. He is also a recipient of the Padmashri award.