Akila Prashant pursued her MBBS in 2000 from the University of Mysore, MD-Biochemistry in 2005 from Manipal University, postgraduate diploma in genomic medicine and health care in 2018 from the University of South Wales, and Ph.D. in 2018 from JSS Academy of Higher Education and Research. She worked in the Department of Biochemistry, Manipal College of Medical Sciences (Pokhra), as a lecturer in 2006 and joined the Department of Biochemistry, JSS Medical College, in 2007 as an assistant professor, and she was promoted to associate professor in 2011 and a professor in 2016. Along with the routine clinical biochemistry work, she has established the newborn screening facility for treatable metabolic errors at JSS Hospital and has screened more than 5000 newborns to date for seven disorders. She does research in sepsis and inflammation, molecular biology, cancer stem cells, and genetics.