Vaccines essential for reducing burden of infectious diseases, says Gagandeep Kang

31/08/2020 1 Comment read Gender, Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 31.08.2020 (SciDev.Net): Internationally renowned for her inter-disciplinary research on transmission, development and prevention of enteric infections and their sequelae in children in India, Gagandeep Kang is the first Indian woman scientist to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. She is a member of the WHO’s Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety.

Currently, a professor of microbiology in the Division of Gastrointestinal Sciences in her alma mater, the Christian Medical College Vellore, Kang grew up in a science-oriented household, reading Isaac Asimov. She attended 10 schools in 12 years as her father, a mechanical engineer in the Indian Railways, was transferred across northern and eastern India.

The frequent transfers taught her to be adaptable and learn outside the classroom. She spent time learning on her own with help from her parents. They would visit mines to understand about minerals and chemicals. Her father would bring home lenses, concave mirrors and Woulfe bottles and they set up their own lab and herbarium.

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Medics with disabilities call for medicine to be inclusive

21/08/2020 4 Comments read Disability, Health & Science

Photo Credit: © Dinesh Palipana

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 21.08.2020 (SciDev.Net): Doctors treat and heal patients, but they are seldom seen as people who may themselves require care or accommodation. Medics with disabilities are now calling for a paradigm shift in the mindset to make medical education and the profession more inclusive.

“Being a doctor is a privilege. We have the opportunity to play a part in a person’s most significant of journeys. We have the sacred trust of the public. We have also been thought leaders on many historical issues. For these reasons the medical profession needs to lead the way in inclusivity,” says Dinesh Palipana, a Sri Lanka-born Australian doctor who was left severely disabled after a road accident.

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Cryonics, will science fiction become fact?

02/10/2006 0 Comments read Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 02.10.2006 (DNAIndia): Some people love life too much to ever let go. Australian biologist Philip Rhoades is one of hundreds of people, who believe in Cryonics. It is the practice of suspending normal decay processes in people, who have been declared legally dead, by storing them at low temperatures in the hope of future medical re-animation.

As a boy, growing up in the western suburbs of Sydney, Rhoades’ favourite pastime was reading science fiction. He was particularly drawn towards John Wyndham’s `logical fantasy’ novels.

“I liked The Chrysalids most and I had assumed that by the time I would grow old; science, medicine and technology would evolve a way to keep us alive forever”, says 54-year-old Rhoades, who is establishing Australia’s first Cryonic Centre.

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