Dr. M. Radhakrishna Pillai (born in 1960) obtained his Ph.D in tumor immunology from the University of Kerala and had post-doctoral work in molecular biology and immune-pharmacology at the University of Arizona. He started his career at Regional Cancer Centre, Thiruvananthapuram as the head of the Department of Molecular Medicine, Drug Development and Chemo-informatics and joined RGCB in 2005, as the Director, at the age of 44. His academic honours include Fellow, Indian Academy of Sciences; Fellow, National Academy of Sciences, and Fellow, National Academy of Medical Sciences. Professional honors include Chairman, Institutional Committee for Stem Cell Research, SCTIMST, Research Advisory Panel and Scientific Advisory Council, National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi and Research Advisory Panel and Scientific Advisory Committee, National Centre for Cell Sciences, Pune. He was the recipient of the ICMR Raja Ravi Sher Singh Award for outstanding Cancer Research (1991) and recipient of the ICMR Sandoz Oration Award (2000) for Outstanding Cancer Research in the field of Human Papilloma Virus Research. He is an active member of various societies such as International Union Against Cancer (UICC), Indian Association for Cancer Research, Indian Immunology Society and Institute of Biology, London.   He has mentored 20 Ph.Ds to date and has nine ongoing Ph.D students. He had a patent on porphyritic derivatives for photo dynamic therapy (PDT). Currently, he is the Director, RGCB, Thiruvananthapuram.