Gagandeep Kang

Gagandeep Kang was born in 1962 and trained as a physician in India before turning to research into the diseases that were killing large numbers of children in the country without drawing much international research funding. Diarrheal illness caused by rotavirus was one of the leading causes of child death in India, yet the vaccines available were priced for wealthier countries.

Working at Christian Medical College in Vellore, she spent years studying how the virus spread and how children's immune systems responded to it, research that fed directly into the development of an indigenous, low-cost rotavirus vaccine, produced in India and licensed for a fraction of the price of imported alternatives. The vaccine was added to India's national immunisation programme and has since been credited with preventing large numbers of severe childhood infections.

She went on to lead the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, pushing to build the kind of clinical research infrastructure in India that could test vaccines and treatments locally rather than relying entirely on trials run abroad.

In 2019 she became the first Indian woman scientist elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in its 360-year history. She has continued to argue publicly for stronger, more transparent vaccine science, including during India's response to COVID-19.