Katayun Virkar
Katayun Dattatraya Virkar (4 August 1918 – 28 July 2011) was an Indian physician and medical researcher who led the contraception division at India's National Institute of Research on Reproductive Health (NIRRH) in Mumbai. Born in Bombay, she earned her medical degree from the University of Mumbai in 1946. In 1964 she received a Technical Assistance Fellowship from the Population Council to study obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Michigan Medical Center.
Her early career included hospital work in Surat and Pune, and she later became a reproductive physiology researcher at the Indian Cancer Research Center. She studied how contraceptive methods affect the body, including intrauterine devices and hormonal methods such as pills, implants, and injections. As head of the contraception division at NIRRH, she was active in the Family Planning Association of India and contributed to the World Health Organization’s Task Force on Oral Contraceptives in the 1980s.
Virkar published widely in international journals and spoke at professional events, including presenting the Indian Academy of Cytologists’ 1979 oration on vaginocervical cytology with exogenous estrogens and progestins. She belonged to several professional groups, such as the Bombay Obstetrics and Gynaecology Society and the All-India Medical Women's Association. She was married to another doctor and had two sons, Jeevan and Prakash. She died in 2011 at the age of 92 in India.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 07:10 (CET).