Prof. Balaram obtained his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Pune University followed by a master’s degree from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur. He earned his Ph.D. from Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh and underwent post-doctoral training at the Department of Chemistry, Harvard University, U.S.A, under Nobel laureate Robert Burns Woodward. At the young age of 24, he joined the faculty of the Molecular Biophysics Unit (MBU) at IISc, Bangalore, established by Prof. G.N. Ramachandran.

Prof. Balaram's early research focused on the membrane-active peptide alamethicin, which led to a long-standing interest in the conformational limitations on backbone folding induced by the unique residue alpha aminoisobutyric acid (Aib). He has also made significant contributions to the design and synthesis of disulphide-containing model peptides, which has permitted the construction of bioorganic models for redox proteins with active disulphide loops. His outstanding contributions include studies on the structure, conformation and biological activity of designed and natural peptides, the use of NMR, crystallography and mass spectrometry for proteins and peptides, studies on Plasmodium falciparum triosephosphate isomerase (TIM) and computational analysis of protein structures.