Two scientists of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) were among the 51 outstanding clinical and biomedical scientists on whom the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) conferred awards on Tuesday. Dr P Satish Chandra, Director, NIMHANS, and Dr Venkatasubramanian Ganesan, Additional Professor at the Department of Psychiatry at the institute spoke to Express hours after receiving the award from Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad.
Dr Chandra of the Department of Neurology is the first from the field to receive the award after 12 years. “The last neurology scientist who bagged this award was Dr M Gowri Devi who was then the director of our institute,” Dr Chandra said.
ICMR started the tradition of honouring biomedical scientists in 1953 and the Basanti Devi Amir Chand Award for the year 2010, meant for senior scientists, was conferred on Dr Chandra for his contribution to the field of epilepsy research. He has been working on finding the semiology or signs of epilepsy, especially hot water epilepsy, which is a form of reflex epilepsy in childhood.
“We established a genetic connection for epilepsy and tried to ascertain the causes behind it. We also set up a free legal cell within the institute and the set-up for magneto encephalography,” he said. NIMHANS faculty worked on this along with scientists from the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR).
Dr Chandra added that very few scientists from the field of mental health and neurosciences have been recognised and awarded. “Very few people take up studies and research in mental health and such awards will be a great boost for the field which is also being recognised as a non-communicable disease,” he observed.
Dr Venkatasubramanian Ganesan, who received the Dr Vidya Sagar Award, has done extensive research on schizophrenia since 1998. “The neurobiological research was concentrated on linking schizophrenia, which is a brain abnormality, to abnormalities in other body systems. We established a model called ‘Neuro immuno metabolic model for Schizophrenia Pathogenesis’ to explain this phenomenon,” he said.
Dr Ganesan said that the approach will be useful for students by giving them a comprehensive understanding of the complex disorder in which limited research has been done.
The other awardees included nine from Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, seven from ICMR institutions, five from the All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and three each from Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and King George’s Medical University (KGMU), Lucknow, and two from Sri Chitra Thirunal Institute of Medical Sciences, Thiruvananthapuram.