Dr. V. Mohan, Padma Shri
Diabetologist, Researcher & Founder of Dr. Mohan’s Diabetes Specialities Centre
A young doctor once asked him, “Sir, how do you manage to treat so many patients and still publish hundreds of research papers?”
Dr. V. Mohan replied with a smile, “Diabetes is not just a clinical problem — it is a research opportunity and a public-health challenge. Every patient teaches us something. If we combine careful clinical care with systematic research and education, we can help far more people than we can treat one by one.”
That integrated approach has defined his life’s work.
V. Mohan was born on 10 April 1954. His father, Prof. M. Viswanathan, is regarded as the “Father of Diabetology in India” for establishing one of the first diabetic clinics in independent India at Stanley Medical College, Chennai, in 1948. Inspired by his father, Mohan began working on diabetes research even as a medical student.
He completed his MBBS and MD (General Medicine) from Madras Medical College, Chennai, winning several prizes and the Dr. R. V. Rajam Gold Medal for standing first in the university. He later obtained a Ph.D. and a D.Sc. by thesis — one of the few medical doctors in India to do so. He trained as a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School and Hammersmith Hospital, London, and as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the University of Ulm, Germany.
In 1971, while still a student, he helped his father convert a small nursing home into India’s first private diabetes hospital — the M.V. Hospital for Diabetes. He worked there for nearly 20 years. In 1991, together with his late wife Dr. Rema Mohan (an internationally recognised ophthalmologist specialising in diabetic eye disease), he established Dr. Mohan’s Diabetes Specialities Centre in Gopalapuram, Chennai. What began as a small clinic has grown into one of the largest chains of diabetes centres in the world, with around 50 branches across more than 30 cities and eight states of India, serving hundreds of thousands of registered patients. The centre is recognised as an International Diabetes Federation (IDF) Centre of Excellence in Diabetes Care.
In 1996 he founded the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation (MDRF), which has become Asia’s largest stand-alone diabetes research centre and an ICMR Collaborating Centre of Excellence. His research has covered epidemiology (including the landmark ICMR-INDIAB national study), genetics, monogenic diabetes, precision medicine, nutrition, complications and prevention models such as the Chunampet Rural Diabetes Prevention Project. He has published well over 1,200–1,800 peer-reviewed papers and textbook chapters, attracting more than 2,50,000 citations and an exceptionally high h-index — among the highest for any medical doctor in India.
Dr. Mohan has trained thousands of physicians, diabetes educators and nurses, conducted tens of thousands of free diabetes camps, and provided free treatment to large numbers of underprivileged patients, including children with type 1 diabetes. He is a Fellow of all four Royal Colleges of Physicians of the UK, the Indian National Science Academy, and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, among many other distinctions.
The Government of India awarded him the Padma Shri in 2012. Other major honours include the Dr. B. C. Roy National Award, the Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Centenary Award (ICMR), the Dr. Harold Rifkin Award and Kelly West Award from the American Diabetes Association, and the inaugural EASD Diabetes Global Impact Prize (2025).
Even after more than five decades in the field, Dr. Mohan continues to combine clinical care, research, education and charity.
“Diabetes can be controlled and, in many cases, prevented,” he often says. “With the right knowledge, systems and compassion, we can reduce its burden on individuals and on the nation.”
From helping establish India’s first private diabetes hospital as a student to building a nationwide network of centres, creating a leading research foundation, publishing at an extraordinary scale, and receiving the Padma Shri, Dr. V. Mohan has played a central role in making diabetology a recognised specialty and improving diabetes care across India.
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