Dr. Sukumaran Menon Obituary (1946 - 2023)

Dr. Sukumaran Menon was born in Sreemoolanagaram, Kerala State, India, the eldest of five children of Aikara Parameswara Menon and Pulipra Kutikat Bharathy Amma. He completed his PhD in organic chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 1974. He then moved with his wife Vanaja to Baltimore, MD, for a postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University. Suku was a brilliant scientist who dedicated his life to the development of many life-saving drugs, with appointments at the University of Chicago, Abbott Labs, and Hospira. At Abbott, he earned the prestigious title of Volwiler Research Fellow. After retirement in 2015, he and Vanaja moved to Edmonds, WA to be near their son Vijay and his family. In retirement, Suku enjoyed travel, playing bridge, attending his grandsons' musical performances and sporting events, listening to Indian classical music and admiring the flowers in his and Vanaja's garden. Suku is survived by his wife Vanaja, his son Vijay, his daughter in law Emily and his grandsons Toby and Rafe as well as a loving extended family and network of friends in India, the US, Canada, Malaysia, and around the globe. We will miss his loving presence and dry sense of humor, his quiet kindness, his definitive takes on how the world should be, and his generous sharing of his scientific expertise. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations in his memory to the Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center in Seattle. He received world class care through the Hutch and also was very interested in their scientific work on cancer.