Prof. David Krishna Menon, an India-born expert in brain trauma and Professor of Anaesthesia at the University of Cambridge, has been awarded one of the highest honours by Britain's King Charles III for his "services to neurocritical care." The 75-year-old monarch conferred upon Prof. Menon the title of Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in his annual Birthday Honours list over the weekend, NDTV reported.
Prof. Menon, who trained in Medicine, Anaesthesia, and Intensive Care at the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education & Research (JIPMER) in Pondicherry, is the Head of the Division of Anaesthesia at the University of Cambridge. He founded the Neurosciences Critical Care Unit (NCCU) at Addenbrooke's National Health Service (NHS) teaching hospital in Cambridge and is renowned globally for his clinical and research leadership in traumatic brain injury.
"I am deeply honoured to be nominated for a CBE and accept it on behalf of all thosehttps://www.ndtv.com/indians-abroad/king-charles-honours-india-born-brain-trauma-expert-david-krishna-menon-5916734 who have worked with me during what has been—and continues to be—a very rewarding career," said Prof. Menon.
Raised in Delhi, the son of P.G.K. Menon, a senior official at All India Radio (AIR), Prof. Menon pursued his medical training with a focus on neurocritical care, secondary brain injury, neuroinflammation, and metabolic imaging of acute brain injury.
As the first director of NCCU, he pioneered the first recognised training programme for specialist neurocritical care in the UK, developing protocols that improved clinical outcomes in severe head injury and the management of acute intracranial haemorrhage, according to the Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH) NHS Foundation Trust.
Prof. Menon has been an intensive care consultant at NCCU since 1993 and remains an active member of the neurocritical care clinical team. He also serves as a director of research, principal investigator at the Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre, and principal investigator at the van Geest Centre for Brain Repair at the University of Cambridge.
After serving two terms as a senior investigator at the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), he was appointed emeritus NIHR Senior Investigator in 2019. He is a founding fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and a professorial fellow in medical sciences at Queens' College, Cambridge University.
CUH highlighted his numerous achievements, including co-leading the European Union-funded EURO 30-million CENTER-TBI Consortium, the International Initiative on TBI Research, and the multi-funder UK national Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Research Platform. He co-led the "Lancet Neurology Commissions on TBI" in 2017 and 2022 and was the executive editor of the UK All Party Parliamentary Group Report on Acquired Brain Injury 2019.
Prof. Menon has been an applicant or co-applicant on awarded grants totalling over GBP 50 million and has published over 650 peer-reviewed papers. Since 2021, he has consistently been rated as a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate. The Acute Brain Injury Program at Cambridge, which he founded, has supported over 50 PhD studentships and nurtured several senior investigators in clinical and basic neuroscience.
This year's CBE from the King also recognised another Indian-origin professional for "services to transport." Dipesh Jayantilal Shah, Chair of National Highways, England, and former CEO of the UK Atomic Energy Authority and of large businesses at BP, was honoured. Shah, a graduate of the Universities of London and Warwick and the Harvard Business School management programme, had previously received an OBE for his distinguished career in both the public and private sectors.
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