Kalanithi Nesaretnam

Minister, Embassy of Malaysia
Belgium

Biography

Kalanithi Nesaretnam obtained her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Reading, UK in 1996. She is currently a Minister at the Malaysian Embassy based in Brussels, Belgium. She is also the Regional Manager for the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) in Europe. She started her career at MPOB as a scientist studying the effects of palm oil and its phytonutrients in food, nutrition and health. She has a number of patents and several publications to her credit and is best known for her contribution to the field of research in tocotrienols and breast cancer. She was awarded the Gold Medal for excellence in research by MPOB in 2001 and won the prestigious World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) Best Woman Inventor in 2006. She is well respected in the scientific community. She was a founding member of the Malaysian Chapter of the Society for Free Radical Research (SFRR) and is the Past-President for SFRR Asia. Prior to her current position, she was for six years, Director at MPOB in charge of the division covering sustainability. She has been instrumental in persuading the oil palm industry to adopt sustainable practices.