Empowering Young Medics in Liver Research: Indo-US Initiative
Times of India | 20 April 2024
KOLKATA: John C Martin Centre for Liver Research and Innovations (JCMLRI), an initiative of Liver Foundation has collaborated with Stravitz-Sanyal Institute for Liver and Metabolic Health, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, for exposing 17 young clinicians from different parts of the country to research and exchange programmes.
Dr Abhijit Chowdhury, head of hepatology department at IPGME&R and professor and chair of hepatology at IILDS, said, “This is for the first time that such a collaboration has been made in the field of hepatology in the country.The clinicians have been chosen from different institutes all over the country on the basis of their merits. The collaborative research programmes will groom them to think out of the box to write research papers and provide better treatment to liver patients.”
As part of the collaboration, both the institutes are organizing a two-day workshop, ‘SHARP’ on Friday and Saturday. The workshop, which is supported by Indian Council of Medical Research and Department of Health Research, aims at sharpening these students’ aptitude for hepatology research programme. Eminent panelists from India and abroad are grooming the young medicos who are doing researches on vascular liver diseases, hepatology, gastroenterology among other areas.
JCMLRI at Sonarpur is located on the campus of Indian Institute of Liver Diseases and Digestive Sciences (IILDS), which is a treatment, education and research institute in gastroenterology and liver diseases. The Liver Foundation, West Bengal, a non-profit non-government organization on public health, has developed both JCMLRI and IILDS.
Of the 17 clinicians chosen for the Indo-US collaborative research programmes, three are from Kolkata – while Srijan Mazumdar and Souveek Mitra are from IILDS, Shreyashi Dasgupta is from JCMLRI.
“The collaboration will help us in many ways. We will learn to choose right research questions that will impact the health of those suffering in best possible ways. A mentor with long experience can guide a young researcher how to attain his or her goals without taking a blind path of research,” said Mazumdar.
“Young researchers like us are getting to interact with luminaries in the field of hepatology from across the globe,” said Dasgupta.
Arun J Sanyal, director of Stravitz-Sanyal Institute for Liver and Metabolic Health, said, “It is our goal to recognize the central role of liver as a driver of metabolic health and liver. With the collaboration, we can do better than we did in the past.”
Rajiv Bahl, director general of ICMR, who was chief guest at the inaugural ceremony of the workshop, said, “We are welcoming the collaboration for Indo-US for capacity development of young clinicians.”