Dr. Soumya Swaminathan is an eminent scientist and pediatrician who has served in many distinguished global healthcare roles. She has lead groundbreaking research in Tuberculosis, HIV, and in healthcare policy making. She was instrumental in Covid-19 vaccines research and its equitable distribution. She is the first Chief scientist of the World health Organisation (WHO) and served in other important healthcare leadership roles. She has worked tirelessly to translate research into impactful programmes throughout her career.
Soumya Swaminathan was born on May 2, 1959, in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, into a family deeply rooted in science. Her father, the legendary Dr. M. S. Swaminathan, known as the “Father of India’s Green Revolution,” was an agricultural scientist whose work transformed food security in India. Soumya charted her path in medicine and public health. Her mother, Mina Swaminathan, was an educationalist focused on pre school education and an advocate for gender equity. 1 She has two sisters who also work in economics and development.
She pursued her MBBS at the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC), Pune. Following this, she completing her MD in Pediatrics from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi. Her further training included a dual Fellowship in Neonatology and Pediatric Pulmonology at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, University of Southern California, USA, she specifically studied breathing regulation and a afterwards spent a year as a Research Fellow in the Dept. of Pediatric Respiratory Diseases, University of Leicester, UK. 1,4
She then joined as a senior research officer in cardiopulmonary medicine unit and an adjunct associate clinical professor at the department of public health and Family Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine in Massachusetts.
After returning to India she joined Tuberculosis Research Centre, Chennai in 1992 which later became part of the Indian Council of Medical Research.
At TRC, she contributed to clinical trials aimed at improving TB treatment regimens. The Indian research and clinical trials front were limiting at the time, which led her to organise many national and global collaborations. She initiated few clinical trials from her learnings from US in the TB studies and in diagnostic methods. She studied extensively on Tb in children. Her clinical and community-based research helped bridge many gaps between diagnostic methods, clinical diagnosis and treatment regimen.4 She later became the director of the National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis.
Dr. Swaminathan’s contributions to TB research have been globally recognized. She has published more than 400 peer-reviewed papers including in Lancet and created policy reports, establishing her as a leading voice in infectious disease research.⁵
From 2009 to 2011, Swaminathan was coordinator of the UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases in Geneva.
She always emphasises the need for more awareness about TB since the general public assume that the Tb has been eradicated several years ago, unlike the case.
Some of her notable contributions include:
Tuberculosis Treatment and Drug Resistance: Her research included around understanding the epidemiology of TB transmission better and finding out why there are certain hotspots for MDR-TB; doing clinical studies for better treatment regimens for MDR-TB; development of indigenous diagnostics; and work on vaccines. She has led clinical trials in India for better treatment regimens, establishing research facilities in medical institutions across India and led clinical trials that evaluated shorter, more effective treatment regimens for TB and MDR-TB, providing evidence that informed both Indian and global TB control programs.
Pediatric HIV Research: She was instrumental in developing protocols for the prevention and treatment of pediatric HIV in India, focusing on early diagnosis and antiretroviral therapy for children.⁷
Through her leadership, India contributed significantly to global TB research, aligning with the WHO’s End TB Strategy.
Until 2013, she was director, National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (NIRT) in Chennai.
In 2015, Dr. Swaminathan was appointed Director-General of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and Secretary of the Department of Health Research, Government of India. She was the first woman to be appointed to this position. She made it into a point to collect real time data for the country through ICMR, which could be used to make evidence based policy by the MoHfW.
Under her leadership, ICMR launched new website with added features, wider outreach, enhanced community dissemination & single portal integration for all activities of ICMR HQ & its 32 institutes with 5 social media handle integration.
During her tenure, she spearheaded efforts to modernize India’s biomedical research infrastructure especailly worked to improve the scope and quality of biomedical research being conducted in Indian medical colleges. She promoted collaboration between national and international research bodies for this purpose. She worked to translate the research into benefitting national health policies in her tenure.
Her leadership emphasized evidence-based policymaking, with a focus on infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases, and maternal and child health and nutrition.
In October 2017, Dr. Swaminathan joined the WHO as Deputy Director-General for Programmes and went on to serve till March 2019. She has previously served as coordinator of the UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases in Geneva in 2009 to 2011.
In 2019, she was appointed as the first-ever Chief Scientist at WHO, a newly created position aimed at strengthening the Science division with a focus on research, quality assurance of norms and standards and digital health. Her tenure coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic. She played a key role during the pandemic in coordinating scientific efforts at the WHO, as well as in setting up Covax, with a focus on equitable vaccine distribution to LMICs.
Beyond COVID-19, she advanced WHO’s initiatives in digital health, antimicrobial resistance, and strengthening health systems in low-resource settings. Her leadership reinforced the importance of science and transparency in public health decision-making.
After completing her tenure at WHO in 2022, Dr. Swaminathan returned to India and assumed new roles in research and advocacy. She became Chairperson of the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), where she continues to contribute to public health, nutrition, and sustainability initiatives.
She also serves as a senior fellow at the Prasanna School of Public Health, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, and holds leadership positions in organizations like the Governing Health Futures 2030 Commission, the TransDisciplinary University (TDU), NUS Board of Trustees and several international scientific advisory boards.
Dr. Swaminathan has received numerous national and international honors for her contributions to medicine and public health.
Dr. Swaminathan’s career reflects her desire to use science for the public good. She grew up seeing the work of her father and the impact of that moulded her from a young age to contribute to the society. Although she chose medicine, she found ways to make use of the knowledge in the field of science and ultimately using it for the greater good. Her compassion reflects in her advocacy of equitable healthcare for everyone especially in low and middle income countries during her tenure at WHO. And she remains true to her dedication to her work for eradicating TB by continuing the work through several organisations currently.
Department of Health Research, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India, “Secretary Profile | Department of Health Research | MoHFW | Government of India,” archived June 27, 2017, accessed September 13, 2025, https://web.archive.org/web/20170627002104/http://www.dhr.gov.in/about-us/secretary-dhr.
Das, Pamela. “Soumya Swaminathan: Re-energising Tuberculosis Research in India.” The Lancet 387, no. 10024 (2016): 1153. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)30008-3.
M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation. “Soumya Swaminathan – MSSRF Team.” Accessed September 13, 2025. https://www.mssrf.org/mssrf-team.
Governing Health Futures 2030 Commission. “Meet the Co-Chairs and Commissioners / Dr Soumya Swaminathan.” Accessed September 13, 2025. https://www.governinghealthfutures2030.org/about-us/meet-the-co-chairs-and-commissioners/dr-soumya-swaminathan/.
MIT-WPU. “Dr. Soumya Swaminathan.” Awardee Profiles. Accessed September 13, 2025. https://mitwpu.edu.in/awardee-profiles/dr-soumya-swaminathan-185.
MSM