People of 2020: Raman R Gangakhedkar 'The Virus Chaser'

Raman R Gangakhedkar, 58
Dr CG Pandit Chair, ICMR

Dr Raman R Gangakhedkar wasn’t particularly convincing while briefing the media on behalf of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) every evening, but the AIDS/HIV researcher who retired as the head of epidemiology and communicable diseases is one of the country’s most experienced virologists.

After retirement in June, as professor and Dr CG Pandit National Chair at ICMR, he will now also assist the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune. NIV was the first to isolate the Covid-19 virus when it affected three patients in Kerala.

Gangakhedkar was director-in-charge of the National AIDS Research Institute (NARI), Pune, before he moved to the ICMR headquarters in Delhi where he handled the Nipah virus. Globally, researchers who were working on a vaccine for HIV/AIDS were the first to switch to work on Covid-19 and Gangakhedkar is no exception.