Dr. Babu serves as an Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and is the Co-Director of the Neurological Research Institute at Massachusetts General Brigham. She serves as a physician scientist. She is originally from Bangalore, India, and she completed her Neurology residency training at the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio, followed by two fellowships at Harvard Medical School; one in Neuromuscular medicine and the second in Neurodegenerative disorders focused on ALS clinical research. Her research training includes a master's in public health at the University of Maryland School of Public Health and a 2-year Master's equivalent, Clinical and Translational Research Academy program at Harvard Medical School. 

Suma's research is all centered around improving outcomes for people with ALS. She is a firm believer in team science and is passionate about therapeutic development for ALS. She has a special interest in early phase trials and gene therapy trials in ALS, including C9 ALS. She leads several large, multi-site clinical trials and expanded access protocols, either as an overall PI, as multiPI or as site PI and her studies are funded by the NIH, Industry or Foundations. Dr. Babu launched the MyMatch Program in 2025 which focuses on accelerating the path to new ALS therapies. ALS MyMatch is an ongoing series of patient-centric Phase 1b/2a biomarker-driven clinical trials. She also leads the neuroimaging research program for ALS at Mass General Hospital, where she collaborates with leading neuroscientists and physicists for developing multimodal quantitative neuroimaging biomarkers for ALS. 

She co-chairs the NEALS neuroimaging subcommittee. Suma currently serves as a non-compensated, elected member of the congressionally directed committee on making ALS a livable disease at the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.