Vishnu Subrahmanyam is a bioethicist and science and technology studies (STS) scholar interested in how biomedical technologies and knowledge-making reshape the meanings and practices of care. His research follows how scientific categories are reshaped and modified, leading to the emergence of novel treatment technologies. He works primarily across HIV and infectious disease, bringing together perspectives from critical HIV studies and implementation science. During his PhD, Vishnu examined a major transformation in HIV medicine: the move from daily HIV pills toward long-acting HIV treatments. He studied what happens when a problem historically understood through the language of treatment adherence is increasingly addressed through pharmaceutical design and clinical infrastructures. Following long-acting HIV technologies from clinical research into implementation, Vishnu argues that the unsettled character and heterogeneity of knowledge surrounding “treatment adherence” act as an engine for biomedical innovation in HIV. His work also shows how changing the material form of treatment can also change where biomedicine locates responsibility for care, what it asks of patients, and what kinds of lives treatment is designed to accommodate.

Vishnu received his PhD in Bioethics and Health Humanities from the University of Texas Medical Branch, and an advanced Master’s in Bioethics from KU Leuven. Before turning to bioethics and STS, Vishnu trained as a chemist at Pondicherry University in India. The movement between the laboratory sciences and the interpretive study of science continues to shape how Vishnu thinks about biomedical knowledge, technology, and care.