Indian ophthalmologist
V. S. Sangwan
|
---|
|
Born
| (
1964-08-22
)
22 August 1964
(age 59)
|
---|
Nationality
| Indian
|
---|
Alma mater
| |
---|
Known for
| Studies on
limbal stem cell
biology
|
---|
Awards
| - 2002 Dr. P. Siva Reddy Researcher of the Year Award
- 2003 Dr. Vengal Rao Award
- 2005 Col. Rangachary Award
- 2006
Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize
- 2007
DBT
National Technology Award
- AAO
Achievement Award
|
---|
Scientific career
|
Fields
| |
---|
Institutions
| |
---|
|
Virender Singh Sangwan
(born 22 August 1964) is an Indian
ophthalmologist
and the
Dr. Paul Dubord Chair
professor and director of the
L. V. Prasad Eye Institute
,
Hyderabad
. Known for his research on
limbal stem cells
, Sangwan is the founder secretary and an adviser of the Uveitis Society of India. The
Council of Scientific and Industrial Research
, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the
Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology
, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Medical Sciences in 2006.
[1]
[note 1]
Biography
[
edit
]
Born in the north Indian state of
Haryana
, Virender S. Sangwan graduated in medicine from
Maharshi Dayanand University
in 1986 and completed his MS in ophthalmology in 1991.
[2]
Subsequently, he did a fellowship at
L. V. Prasad Eye Institute
(LVPEI) on
cornea
and
anterior segment
surgery and during his stay there,
Gullapalli Nageswara Rao
, the founder of the institute, advised him about the opportunity to join
Orbis International
as an acting medical director at
Orbis Flying Eye Hospital
which he accepted.
[3]
He held the position for over 18 months and left for another fellowship program on ocular immunology and
uveitis
at
Massachusetts Eye and Ear
, an associate of
Harvard Medical School
under the supervision of Charles Stephen Foster, who would later found the
Massachusetts Eye Research and Surgery Institution
.
[4]
Returning to India, he re-joined LVPEI as a cornea specialist, became an associate director
[5]
and a director
[6]
and heads
SRUJANA Centre for Innovation
[7]
as well as the
Center for Ocular Regeneration
, a joint venture of LVPEI and
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
.
[8]
He holds the
Dr.Paul Dubord Chair in Cornea
at LVPEI
[9]
and is as an adjunct associate professor at
University of Rochester
.
[10]
Virender Sangwan is married to Vandana who is a dental surgeon and the couple has two children, Sonalika and Sahil.
[10]
Legacy
[
edit
]
Sangwan has done extensive work on
limbal stem cells
which is reported to have assisted in restoring vision to patients with corneal injuries.
[11]
Along with Geeta K. Vemuganti, an ophthalmologist with interest in limbal stem cell studies, he carried out research on the subject and together they developed a methodology for growing stem cells for subsequent transplantation in human eyes for repairing injured
epithelium
and cornea.
[12]
This was subsequently put on clinical trial in 2011,
[3]
reported to be the largest successful trial of
stem cell therapy
on humans, till then.
[10]
[13]
Later, with the assistance of two philanthropists, they established
Sudhakar and Sreekanth Ravi Stem Cell Biology Laboratory
where he furthered his work. The methodology developed by him involved harvesting of cell tissues from the healthy eye of the patient and cultivation of the cell tissues on
amniotic sac
membrane which was then transplanted on the injured eye; he has done over 800 transplants at LVPEI, reportedly with 76% success rate.
[14]
Later, he also developed a methodology for culturing
conjunctival
and limbal stem cells together which is known to have application in treating patients with extreme ocular damage of the outer surface.
[5]
His studies have been documented by way of a number of articles
[15]
[note 2]
of which many have been listed by online article repositories such as
Google Scholar
[16]
and
ResearchGate
,
[17]
and his work has drawn citations in texts by others.
[18]
[19]
[20]
He has also served as an investigator in a number of clinical projects undertaken by
Sudhakar and Sreekanth Ravi Stem Cell Biology Laboratory
.
[21]
Sangwan, having undergone two years' of training at Foster's laboratory on ocular immunology, had started his Indian career focusing on ocular inflammatory diseases such as
Uveitis
and his early work was in this field was as an uveitis and retina specialist at LVPEI.
[3]
This gave him the opportunity to interact with the pioneers of uveitis treatment in India such as Narsing A. Rao, Amod Gupta, Rajeeve Buddi, Jyotirmay Biswas and S. R. Rathinam and when Rao inspired the others to form the
Uveitis Society of India
in 1999, he was among the founder members, serving as its founder secretary and treasurer,
[22]
where he is a member of the advisory board of the society.
[23]
He is involved with the
Himalayan Vision Project
, a joint venture between LV Prasad Eye Institute and Himalayan Health Project
[2]
and has been associated with journals, including
Indian Journal of Ophthalmology
,
Comprehensive Ophthalmology Update
,
Clinical & Experimental Ophthalmology
,
International Ophthalmology
and
British Journal of Ophthalmology
. A vice president of the Asia Cornea Society,
[24]
he is an honorary member of
North African Centre for Sight and Visual Sciences
as well as the national societies of ophthalmology of Peru and El Salvador. He sat in the international steering committees of
Lux Uveitis Multicenter Investigation of a New Approach to Treatment
(LUMINATE) trial and
LUCIDA Program for Prevention of Corneal Transplant Rejection
of Lux Biosciences and is a former secretary of
Eye Bank Association of India
.
[10]
The invited speeches or keynote addresses delivered by him include a lecture on
Cell-based Therapy for Ocular Reconstruction
at the
Louis J. Fox Center for Vision Restoration
of
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
in October 2010.
[25]
and the
TEDx
talk titled,
Square Peg in Round Hole
at
National Institute of Technology Calicut
on 14 January 2012.
[26]
Awards and honors
[
edit
]
Sangwan received the Dr. P. Siva Reddy Researcher of the Year Award of the Andhra Pradesh Akademi of Sciences in 2002 and two of his papers won the Dr. Vengal Rao Award of Andhra Pradesh Ophthalmic Society and Col. Rangachary Award of the All India Ophthalmology Society in 2003 and 2005 respectively.
[10]
The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research awarded him Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, one of the highest Indian science awards in 2006.
[27]
and he received the National Technology Award of the
Department of Biotechnology
in 2007.
[5]
He is also a recipient of Achievement Award of the
American Academy of Ophthalmology
and
Fortune magazine
published a report on the stem cell research of Sangwan in its October 2007 issue.
[10]
Selected bibliography
[
edit
]
- M.S Sridhar, Aashish K Bansal, Virender S Sangwan, Gullapalli N Rao (2000). "Amniotic membrane transplantation in acute chemical and thermal injury".
American Journal of Ophthalmology
.
130
(1): 134?137.
doi
:
10.1016/S0002-9394(00)00500-6
.
PMID
11004281
.
{{
cite journal
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- Fernandes, Merle; Sridhar, Mittanamalli S; Sangwan, Virender S, Rao, Gullapalli N (2005). "Amniotic Membrane Transplantation for Ocular Surface Reconstruction".
Cornea
.
24
(6): 643?653.
doi
:
10.1097/01.ico.0000151501.80952.c5
.
PMID
16015081
.
S2CID
37918350
.
{{
cite journal
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- Virender S. Sangwan, Himanshu P. Matalia, Geeta K. Vemuganti, Ghazala Ifthekar, Anees Fatima, Shashi Singh, Gullapalli N. Rao (2005).
"Early Results of Penetrating Keratoplasty After Cultivated Limbal Epithelium Transplantation"
.
Arch. Ophthalmol
.
123
(3): 334?340.
doi
:
10.1001/archopht.123.3.334
.
PMID
15767475
.
{{
cite journal
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- Fatima A, Sangwan VS, Iftekhar G, Reddy P, Matalia H, Balasubramanian D, Vemuganti GK (2006). "Technique of cultivating limbal derived corneal epithelium on human amniotic membrane for clinical transplantation".
Journal of Postgraduate Medicine
.
52
(4): 257?61.
PMID
17102542
.
S2CID
9303739
.
{{
cite journal
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- Indumathi Mariappan, Savitri Maddileti, Soumya Savy, Shubha Tiwari, Subhash Gaddipati, Anees Fatima, Virender S Sangwan, Dorairajan Balasubramanian, Geeta K Vemuganti (2010). "In vitro culture and expansion of human limbal epithelial cells".
Nature Protocols
.
5
(8): 1470?1479.
doi
:
10.1038/nprot.2010.115
.
PMID
20671730
.
S2CID
8086269
.
{{
cite journal
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- Virender S Sangwan, Rajat Jain, Sayan Basu, Anupam B Bagadi, Shraddha Sureka, Indumathi Mariappan, Sheila MacNeil (2014).
"Transforming ocular surface stem cell research into successful clinical practice"
.
Indian Journal of Ophthalmology
.
62
(1): 29?40.
doi
:
10.4103/0301-4738.126173
.
PMC
3955067
.
PMID
24492499
.
{{
cite journal
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
See also
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
Long link ? please select award year to see details
- ^
Please see
Selected bibliography
section
References
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
1960s
| |
---|
1970s
| |
---|
1980s
| |
---|
1990s
| |
---|
2000s
| |
---|
2010s
| |
---|
2020s
| |
---|
|
---|
International
| |
---|
National
| |
---|
Academics
| |
---|