For her work on Rotavirus.
Professor Gagandeep Kang has been awarded the prestigious Infosys Prize in life science for her pioneering contributions to understanding the natural history of rotavirus and other infectious diseases that are important both globally and in India.
Kang is the Executive Director of Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI), Faridabad, and a professor and head of the Wellcome Trust Research Laboratory; the division of gastrointestinal sciences at Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore.
Kang’s contributions on diarrheal diseases “have enormous implications for vaccines and other public health measures to thwart these infections,” said Infosys Science Foundation. Her research on rotavirus that causes diarrhea in infants has helped develop medicines and techniques which are effectively used by doctors in fighting the disease.
Rotavirus is a leading cause of childhood morbidity and mortality, with India being one of the hardest hit countries. According to WHO’s South-East Asia Region Organization (SEARO), about 453000 children under five years of age die of rotavirus every year. Of this, about 127,000 children are from Southeast Asia and 98,000 from India. So, it is critically important for India to understand its effect on human body and vaccine effectiveness.
In collaboration with colleagues at CMC, Vellore, Kang has shown that the recipient may mount weaker enteric immunity to poliovirus as well, providing an explanation for why Indians require more vaccinations with the oral polio vaccine for effective immunity.
“CMC is a wonderful institution in the freedom I got to pursue my interests in research and build a group to answers questions that we considered important,” Kang told The Wire. “Lately, my role in research became to decide what kinds of questions we would address and how, while my amazing colleagues came up with high-quality assays and tools and then dealt with the deluge of samples and data to get the outputs which we analyzed and interpreted together.”
Kang has extended her work to important practical areas. She has established a clinical laboratory for rotavirus vaccine evaluation that has provided critical information and training to rotavirus vaccine manufacturers not only in India but also in China and Brazil. She has been part of a collaborative network that developed an indigenous rotavirus vaccine for India starting with an Indian rotavirus isolate.
“Prof. Kang’s tremendous achievements in translational and clinical science reflect her scientific breadth and depth, her willingness to tackle hard problems pertaining to human health in India, her ability to forge national and international collaborations to take critically-needed comprehensive approaches, and her inspiring leadership and mentorship. We are thrilled to recognize Prof. Kang for her cutting-edge and highly impactful translational research in biomedicine,” said Inder Verma, Jury Chair of Infosys Prize 2016.
Kang’s groundbreaking work has been recognized with numerous awards and honors. These include Woman Bioscientist of the Year from the Government of India (2006); election to Fellowship of the American Academy of Microbiology (2010), the Indian Academy of Sciences (2011), National Academy of Sciences (2013), the Faculty of Public Health in the UK (2015), and the Indian National Science Academy (2016).