Chandigarh: 47 doctors win awards for their research work at PGIMER’s 8th Annual Research Day

Prof A K Gupta, Dean (Research) & Medical Superintendent, PGIMER, said the awards given in the medical, surgical, pre/para clinical, innovation, and Covid-19 categories were based on the H Index which measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publication.”

The Annual Research Day was attended by two eminent medical scientists of the country, Prof Y K Chawla, former Director, PGI, and Prof Digambar Behera, former Dean (Research), PGIMER, as the Chief Guest and Guest of Honour, respectively.

“Research and innovation is the only way forward to ensure affordable healthcare for all in our country where only 8% have medical insurance and 39 million people fall in the BPL category. The need of the hour is to focus on low-cost healthcare innovations designed for economic reasons and enabling an environment for innovation and research by stimulating the young professionals,” said Prof Chawla.

Highlighting “collaborative efforts” as the precursor for research, Prof Behera emphasised the need for “extra mural funding, seamless procedures, think tank and mentorship, sharing of equipment and central facilities and inter-departmental coordination to give an impetus to research in the country.

In the Covid-19 category, Prof Bikash Medhi was awarded for his work titled ‘Drug targets for Corona Virus’. Dr Rimesh Pal, Assistant Professor, was awarded for his research, ‘COVID-19, diabetes mellitus and ACE2’, Prof Sanjay Kumar Bhadada for his work ‘Should anti-diabetic medications be reconsidered amid Covid-19 pandemic?’, Dr Shipra Gupta for her research, ‘SARS-Cov-2 Detection in Gingival Crevicular Fluid’.

Dr Bhadada in the research observes that robust human studies in the field of Covid-19 and the use of anti-diabetic medications are lacking, in the absence of strong evidence, it would be extremely unwise to consider one drug over the other, good glycemic control should be the goal, no matter what drugs are being used and also how people with diabetes mellitus tend to have more severe diseases, acute respiratory distress syndrome and increased fatality.

From the Department of Psychiatry, Prof Sandeep Grover’s research focused on ‘Psychological Impact of COVID-19 lockdown: An online survey from India’, while Dr Ashu Rastogi researched on ‘Short-term high dose Vitamin D supplementation for Covid-19 disease’ and Dr Vishal Sharma focused on, ‘Coronavirus disease and the liver’ were awarded.

Dr Ashish Kakkar’s research on ‘Deciphering the COVID-19 Cytokine Storm’ was rewarded too along with Dr Arnab Pal’s research ‘Cripto 1, a potential biomarker for oral squamous cell carcinoma’, which will, in the future, pave the way for a screening test for pre and early diagnosis of oral cancers, the incidence of which is very high in India.

“It will be a strip-based test, as we have identified protein-based biomarkers, in blood and saliva and this can be used as a pre-diagnostic tool as well,” explained Dr Pal, whose key area of research is cancer.