While the world is racing against to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, the role of a Sri Lanka-born doctor, Maheshi Ramasamy, is not known to many people in the subcontinent. 

Dr Maheshi Ramasamy, a university lecturer and a doctor at NHS Foundation Trust of Oxford University in Landon, currently is a principal investigator at the Oxford vaccine group- the group responsible for the development of the Oxford vaccine. 

Her findings regarding the Oxford COVID vaccine have previously been published in the medical journal The Lancet. Dr Ramasamy came into international limelight after the publication.

Born to a scientist couple, Dr Ramasamy has a deep-rooted family background in academics and science. Her mother, Prof Mantri Smaranayake, an ethnic Sinhalese, was the first Sri Lankan to receive a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in the UK. Her father, Ranjan Ramasamy, was a Tamil scientist who went to Cambridge University for post-graduation. It is there only the couple met and then got married in Sri Lanka.