PGMIER organises Research Day Celebration in Chandigarh

Delegates at the event

Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGMIER), as part of its Golden Jubilee Celebrations, recently organised Research Day Celebration in Chandigarh. The event was inaugurated by Dr Ashwani Kumar, Union Minister of State for Planning, Science and Technology and Earth Sciences.

The event provided a space for faculty and researchers of various departments to familiarise themselves with the work going on elsewhere within the institute. Researchers in the institute had the opportunity to present their work, besides showcasing the high-quality research work being carried on in the institute. Participants presented 200 research papers on posters, exhibited in Zakir Hall.

Eminent researchers present during the occasion were Prof. SK Sarin, Director of the Institute of Liver and Biliary Science; Dr Rajiv Sarin, Director of the Advanced Center for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer (a part of Tata Memorial Center), Mumbai and Dr Girish Sahni, Director of the Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh.

The highlight of day was an ‘Open House’ in which the panel of invited experts along with the Director and Dean of the PGIMER discussed issues related to biomedical research in the country, strategies to improve collaboration and quality of research and advise today’s researchers on funding opportunities for biomedical research.

Addressing the gathering of eminent physicians, scientists and faculty members on the need to strengthen the innovation ecosystem in the country, Kumar called for excellence in the translational research in order to ensure affordable health care to all. He outlined a series of steps including development of post graduate integrated research programmes; Centres of Excellence linking key departments within and across institutions for major infectious disease such as tuberculosis, malaria, HIV, respiratory infections, emerging viral infections, antimicrobial resistance, zoonosis and for chronic diseases, neurological, cardiac, diabetes, liver, kidney and bone diseases.

Kumar further said that global innovation and technology alliances with strategic partners should form an integrated approach. For this, India needs new structures and mechanisms to create an innovation system which enables indigenous methods for affordable innovations and benchmarking of global best practices for quality innovations. In this direction the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) has entered into a partnership with Stanford University (US) to create the Stanford-India Biodesign (SIB) Programme which aims to groom the future leaders of the Indian medical technology industry. Kumar added that India can become a global leader in the futuristic areas of science, including bio-technology, regenerative medicine, neuro sciences and in translational research among others. Considering India’s long heritage and knowledge, he also emphasised the need to utilise India’s vast bio-resources for further development of traditional system of medicine and herbal drugs with the application of modern scientific tools.

Prof Yogesh Chawla, Director, PGI introduced the chief guests and said, “The Research Day would give us an opportunity not only to have an insight on our research output, but also give a chance to develop collaborative researches with neighbouring sister scientific institutes. We also pledge on this day to work harder to take PGI to greater heights and continue to maintain the brand value of this institute.”

Prof Amod Gupta, Dean, PGI while informing about the research activities in PGI said, “On an average faculty of PGI publishes nearly 550 research papers in various indexed journals and ever since its inception the Institute has published nearly 15,000 papers. There are a number of metrics to measure the quality of research, none perfect but it is very common to look at the number of citations. Our papers receive nearly 4,000 citations every year almost similar to the AIIMS. However, very discouragingly more than 90 per cent of the research that is published from leading medical institutes including PGI or AIIMS and even the IITs or the famed IISc get less than 25 citations.”

EP News Bureau