| Winners of Ranbaxy Research Awards 2012 for excellence in original research work in medical and pharma sciences |
Daiichi Sankyo India Pharma (DSIN) and Ranbaxy Laboratories (Ranbaxy) together with the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) recently organised a symposium titled ‘Overcoming the Bottlenecks in Drug Discovery and Development’ in Gurgaon. The two-day symposium was attended by over 400 delegates from countries including India, Japan, the US, the UK and Singapore. The symposium featured lectures from leading researchers on four key pharma R&D themes: biological hit identification, chemical hit identification, pharma research and chemical hit to lead optimisation.
The conference took on the challenge of productivity improvement in pharma R&D. Speakers highlighted recent advances in computational tools for lead optimisation and new methodologies for chemical hit/target identification and delivery of medicines. The journey from lead optimisation to successful commercialisation of the Daiichi Sankyo’s recently-approved drug Edoxaban was shared as a case study.
The symposium also featured a poster session and a student poster competition. The poster entries were judged by an international panel and selected posters were invited for flash oral presentations during the conference.
Speakers who took part in the conference were Abdul Basit, University College London, UK; Ian Collins, The Institute of Cancer Research, UK; Ben Davis, Vernalis, UK; Gautam Desiraju, Indian Institute of Science, India; Ulrike Eggert, King’s College London, UK; Paul Gleeson, Kasetsart University, Thailand; Anne Hersey, EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute, UK; Andrew Leach, Liverpool John Moores University/ MedChemica, UK; Masatoshi Nagamochi, Daiichi Sankyo, Japan, William Pennie, Pfizer, US; Ashok Prasad, Delhi University, India; Kunal Roy, Jadavpur University, India; Narahari Sastry, CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, India; Ravi Shanker, Pfizer, US; and Fumiaki Yokokawa, Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases, Singapore.
Ranbaxy Science Foundation (RSF), a non-profit organisation set-up by Ranbaxy Laboratories also announced Ranbaxy Research Awards 2012 at the event for excellence in original research work in medical and pharma sciences. The Foundation also announced the Annual Science Scholar Awards.
The awards were presented by internationally acclaimed scientist, Pierre Alain Clavien, Professor & Chairman, Department of Surgery, University Hospital in Zürich, Switzerland. Dr Tsutomu Une, Ranbaxy’s Chairman and Dr Nitya Anand, Chairman of Ranbaxy Science Foundation were also present at the award ceremony.
The awardees were as follows:
Medical Sciences – Basic Research: Prof Umesh Varshney, Professor, Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology, India Institute of Science, Bangalore, for his pioneering discoveries in the areas of protein synthesis and DNA repair using Escherichia coli and mycobacteria as model organisms.
Medical Sciences – Medical Research: The award was jointly shared by Prof Kanjaksha Ghosh, Director, National Institute of Immunohaematology, Mumbai and Prof Saumitra Das, Professor, Department of Microbiology & Cell Biology, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Prof Ghosh received the award for his significant contribution in understanding and economic management of congenital bleeding disorders. Prof Das received the award for his outstanding contribution towards developing novel antiviral agents against Hepatitis C virus.
Medical Sciences – Clinical Research: Prof Parmjeet Randhawa, Professor of Pathology, Division of Transplant Pathology, University of Pittsburgh, US was bestowed with the award for recognising BK virus nephropathy masquerading as rejection in the era of modern immunosuppression. BK virus PCR initially developed for research is now a routine diagnostic and screening tool.
Pharma Sciences: Prof Sandeep Verma, Deva Raj, Chair Professor, Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology, UP was given the award for outstanding contribution in creating novel, self-assembling peptide scaffolds to mimic aggregation of amyloidogenic proteins and for using them as screens to discover inhibitors of these processes.
The Science Scholar Awards in the field of Bio-Medical Sciences were given to Kumar Somyajit, Senior Research Fellow, Department of Biochemistry, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; Priyanka P Trivedi, Ph.D. Scholar, Facility for Risk Assessment & Intervention Studies, Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, NIPER, Punjab; Pushpa Mishra, Senior Research Fellow, Department of Chemistry, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. In the field of Pharma Sciences, the awards were given to Priyanka Shreekrishna Gokhale, PhD Student, Department of Infectious Diseases Biology, National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health, Mumbai and Chetan Prakash Yewale, Senior Research Fellow, Pharmacy Department, Faculty of Technology and Engineering, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda.
Earlier during the day, Ranbaxy Science Foundation organised its 20th Annual Symposium on ‘Regenerative Medicine – Current and Future Perspectives’ in association with the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, New Delhi. The Chief Guest, Dr R Chidambaram, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India delivered the inaugural address followed byProf Pierre Alain Clavien’s key note address. Eminent scientists from India and abroad participated in the symposium and deliberated on the recent advances in regenerative medicine and stem cell therapy and its recent applications in various disease areas such as kidney disorders, type II diabetes mellitus, neuronal disorder, ocular disorders, liver injury, cardiac disorders etc.
Ranbaxy Science Foundation received an overwhelming response when the nominations for Ranbaxy Research Awards opened in May 2013. The nominations were then evaluated by a panel of jury comprising 11 distinguished scientists from all over India.
EP News Bureau – Mumbai