Our Scientists

Dr. Anand Alurkar is basically qualified as a Neurologist (DM Neurology from KEM Hospital, Mumbai in 2000 & DNB Neurology in 2000). He has also undergone a one-year fellowship in Interventional Neuroradiology in 2003 at Bombay Hospital under the guidance of Dr. Anil Karapurkar, who is considered the pioneer of this field in India. Thus, Dr. Alurkar is an ‘Interventional Neurologist’, a very rare breed, since there are only three other Neurologists in India who are formally trained in these procedures. As far as Pune is considered, he returned after training in early 2004 as the first formally trained neuro interventionist in the city. Since then, he is actively & independently performing both diagnostic & therapeutic procedures & finds his basic training as a Neurologist an immense advantage in managing these patients, as it is the patient as a whole who needs to be treated & not just the angiogram images. Dr. Alurkar’s special interest lies in Intracranial stenting & he currently has one of the largest series of these patients in India. Dr. Anand Alurkar is attached as Honorary Interventional Neurologist to KEM Hospital, Pune. Currently he is working as Principal Investigator for (phase III and Phase IV) trials conducting in the KEM hospital, Pune

Email Id: anand_alurkar@yahoo.co.in

Ashish Bavdekar is a Pediatric Gastroenterologist & Pediatric Research Consultant at the KEM Hospital, Pune. His special interests are Vaccines & Infectious Diseases, Pediatric clinical nutrition, and study of the gut microbiome. He is the past President of the Indian Academy of Pediatrics (IAP) – Gastroenterology Chapter. He has been on several IAP task force – Neonatal Cholestasis, Safe Injection Practices, Childhood Obesity, Enteral Nutrition and Acute Diarrhea. He is a past member of the Member of WHO Guideline Development Group on Meningitis outbreak response in sub-Saharan Africa, 2014, WHO Product Development for Vaccines Advisory Committee (PDVAC), Global Burden of Disease India Maternal and Child Health Expert Group. He is presently an expert member on the ICMR childhood anemia task force, DBT expert group on vaccine research and development, India volunteer infection research consortium and the NTAGI influenzae working group.Dr. Bavdekar was and is currently involved in many disease-burden studies, investigator driven & regulatory vaccine / drug trials as an investigator. He has contributed to 5 books, 90 peer reviewed papers and 17 reviews and editorials.

Email ID: a.bavdekar@kemhrcpune.org
ashish.bavdekar1@gmail.com

Mr. Tathagata Bhattacharjee (MBA-IT); Honorary Consultant – Data Science & IT Systems, has relentlessly supported Vadu data systems for over 15 years. He has work experience in both the corporate world and academia. During his tenure in post-graduate teaching, he effectively trained his students on data management using live case studies of VRHP as a win-win scenario to improve data systems at Vadu. He played a pivotal role in rolling out electronic field data capture systems initially using laptop computers and then on android tablets, one of the first exponents of such big scale longitudinal field surveillance using tablets in India.

His global exposure, working as a SAC member for INDEPTH Network and thereafter taking lead role in INDEPTH’s iSHARE project, gave Vadu a leading edge in understanding and designing health data management systems. Currently though he is working with London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), he continues to support KEM Hospital Research Centre for data science development in the capacity of honorary consultant.

Email Id: tathagata.bhattacharjee@kemhrcvadu.org

Dr. Abhijeet P. Bora; B.H.M.S., Diploma in clinical research and clinical data management. Dr. Abhijeet Bora presently working as a senior research fellow for “ICMR’s-Etiology of childhood pneumonia-Task force study and a clinical trial of rare disease-Gaucher disease”. He coordinates NIV study for SARI (Severe Acute Respiratory Illness) and Rota surveillance study very efficiently and supports other studies. He also has 7 years of experience as clinical research coordinator, working in different vaccine studies, clinical trial projects (Phase II to IV), and disease surveillance studies (NIV and ICMR). He is skilled in coordinating and implementing qualitative research studies.

Email Id: a.bora@kemhrcpune.org

Mr. Bharat Choudhari, (MA Politics and Marathi), HDSS Coordinator (HDSS) and Data Manager (National Surveillance system for Enteric Fever in India) KEMHRC, VRHP; PUNE from 2003. His research interest is in demographic research, epidemiology and social science. He is responsible for managing training, monitoring of surveillance activities including verbal autopsy and extensive planning of fieldwork for HDSS. He has been involved in various research projects (clinical and non-clinical) where he conducted training on spirometry, GPS data collection, anthropometric data. Additionally, he was designing sampling strategies and development of study tools. In addition to his field management and data management skills he has acquired and developed his knowledge data cleaning and analysis using SPSS & STATA.

Email Id: bharat.choudhari@kemhrcvadu.org

Dr. Milind Gadkari has been a Consultant Cardiologist with KEM Hospital, Pune from May 1990.He is presently Director, Department of Cardiology at KEM Hospital and Consultant at Sahyadri Hospital, Pune. A Member of the Cardiology Society of India, he is a former President of the Cardiology Society of India, Pune branch. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, (FRCP) London, UK and was also conferred the fellowship of the American College of Cardiology (FACC). A recognized postgraduate teacher of the University of Pune since 1993, he conducts teaching sessions for undergraduate and postgraduate students and is responsible for guiding students on their postgraduate thesis in MD(Medicine) courses. Dr. Gadkari has contributed majorly towards clinical research. He has research experience of over 20 years. He has been the Principal Investigator for more than 30 global clinical drug trials which majorly contributed to newer treatments in Cardiology.

Email Id: gadkaris@gmail.com

Snigdha is pursuing her Ph.D. in Health Sciences from KEM HRC, Pune. She has completed her M.Sc. in Dietetics and Food Service Management and also qualified National Eligibility Test (NET). The topic of her PhD is “A Study to Determine the Relationship Between Nutritional Status of Patients and Nosocomial Infections in A Tertiary Care Setting”. Poor nutritional status is associated with longer hospital stay, mortality and morbidity rate, increase cost and more sufferings. The risk of Nosocomial infections is high therefore, some indicators should predict the incidence of it. Timely and targeted interventions can help to reduce the incidence of Nosocomial infections. Therefore, the aim of conducting this study is to establish association between nutritional status of patient and Nosocomial infections and also how nutritional parameters

Email Id: Snig.gupta30@gmail.com

Dr. Minish M. Jain; MBBS; M.D. (General Medicine) is a Medical Onco-Consultant & HOD of Day Care Centre at KEM Hospital, Pune. He was awarded a Fellowship in Oncology at Hinduja National Hospital & Medical Research Centre in 1997. He was also awarded with the John E Lawrence Foundation Fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, USA in Oct 1998. He has also worked in the Bone Marrow Transplant unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, USA on Non Myelo-ablative BMT. Dr. Minish Jain conducts a large number of clinical trials in oncology.

Email Id: dr.minishjain009@gmail.com

Dr. Anand Shantaram Kawade, M.D; DCH, Consultant Pediatric research KEMHRC, VRHP; PUNE is a Pediatrician having 26 years of clinical experience of managing children of all age groups in both public and private health care set up as well as in large scale community settings. As a trained vaccinologist and clinical trial specialist, his experience of conducting large phase II & III, GCP/ ICH compliant, community-based vaccine trials is crucial for understanding safety & efficacy of trial vaccine. He was investigator for various vaccines trials like Rota vaccine, Hexavalent vaccine, pneumococcal vaccine and various disease burden like ICMR pneumonia task force study. Currently he is working as principal investigator for cervical cancer vaccine trial. He also supports Vadu HDSS. He is also affiliated to IAP and BC. He is keenly interested in medical teaching and medical education technology.

Email Id: askawade@yahoo.com

Mr. Shrikant Shamrao Masalkar has completed his Bachelor’s from Pune University in 2011. Currently he is working in KEM Hospital Research Centre, Vadu as a Document Officer. He has been engaged in Clinical Research work for the past 3 years. In his tenure of 3 years, he has worked on 8 different Clinical Trial studies mainly Vaccine trials such as Rotavirus vaccine study, Pneumococcal Vaccine study, Human Papillomavirus Virus study, Recombinant Bacillus Calamette Guerin vaccine study, Hexavalent study etc.,where he was involved in coordination, communication and team management etc. He also supports Vadu HDSS. He has worked as a Document Officer on 3 Clinical trial studies. He has also worked as an Investigational Product Manager on 4 Clinical trial studies.

Email Id: shrikant.masalkar@kemhrcvadu.org

Dr. Ujjwal Nene, M.A. (Cl. Psychology.), Post Grad. Diploma in Cl. Psychology., Ph.D. (Sexuality / Psychology). She is associated with K.E.M. Hospital and Research Centre since more than twenty-five years. She is in charge of the Sexual Health clinic and working as a Sexual Health Consultant. She has vast experience of working with individuals with various sexual health problems including male/female sexual dysfunction, pre-marriage counseling, issues related to homosexuality, orientation disturbance, Paraphilias and so forth.

She is also dealing with sexual, emotional, behavioral issues of adolescents and children and counselling parents. She has worked in many research projects. She has worked as a resource person for numerous training workshops at state and national level on various topics related to psychology and sexuality, TOT of health professional in public sector in Sexual and Reproductive Health. She has acted as a visiting faculty for post-graduate department of Psychology, Modern College Pune for more than ten years and has contributed chapters in many books. She is a fellow member of Council for Sex Education and Parenthood International (CSEPI).

Email Id: ujjwalnene@gmail.com

Dr. Vasudeo Paralikar; M.B.B.S.; M.D. (Psychiatry); Ph.D. (University of Basel), is associated with KEM Hospital for over 30 years and is a practicing psychiatrist and researcher for over 35 years. His experience includes work in teaching and State Mental Hospitals, and briefly in prison psychiatry. He is a Life Fellow of the Indian Psychiatric Society, member of the Board of Directors of World Association of Cultural Psychiatry, and Society for the Study of Psychiatry and Culture. Since 2008 he heads the Psychiatry Unit and has been instrumental in facilitating the distinction of KEM as a Centre for Cultural Psychiatry. His research bridges gaps between academia and practice, including cultural assessments and counseling, treatment of non-offending persons with pedophilia and development of “NO” App toward prevention of sexual violence. He has 30 publications and is a reviewer for Transcultural Psychiatry. He continues to mentor Masters Students, Ph.D. and post-doc researchers.

Email Id: paralikarv2010@gmail.com

Rutuja is a biotechnologist turned public health researcher working at Vadu Rural Health Program (VRHP) since last 10 years. Rutuja started her work in the as a biotechnologist, to develop a molecular biology laboratory. While doing the lab related work, due to the usual multi-tasking culture at VRHP, she worked with different teams including those leading HDSS and Indoor Air-pollution. In the process, she was involved in the process of generating evidence for policy makers using the research activities conducted at VRHP. She is also involved in the various implementation science studies conducted by the department. Meanwhile she also coordinates communications and related institutional activities. She has authored nearly 17 research papers and one book and is currently Pursuing PhD in “Teleconsultation for management of chronic respiratory diseases” in Global Health at University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.

Email Id: rutuja.patil@kemhrcvadu.org

Sonali Sanghavi is a Clinical Microbiologist at the KEM Hospital, Pune. She is qualified with MD (Microbiology) and PhD (Infectious Diseases and Microbiology). Her research interests are investigating molecular mechanisms of infectious disease pathogenesis and translational research. She has been involved in various diagnostic and epidemiological research activities. She has contributed to book chapter in American Society for Microbiology (ASM) Press, Washington, D.C. 13 peer reviewed international and 5 national publications.

Email Id: sonali.sanghavi@kemhrcpune.org
sanghsk@yahoo.com

Dr. Jyoti Sharma; Consultant Pediatric Nephrologist pursued her graduation and post-graduation from the Armed Forces Medical College, Pune. She is trained in Pediatrics under the auspices of the International Pediatric Nephrology Association and International Society of Nephrology from St. John’s Medical College and Hospital Bengaluru and Montreal Children’s Hospital, Montreal respectively. She joined KEM Hospital in 2013 and is currently running a 1year Fellowship program in Pediatric Nephrology (Indian Society of Pediatric Nephrology) and a 2-year Fellowship of the National Board of Examinations. She is involved in research related to Pediatric Nephrology.

Email ID: jyotivsharma@gmail.com

Ms. Varsha Tol works as a Senior Research Consultant in KEM Hospital Research Centre since 2003. She has completed BSc (Food and Nutrition) in SNDT Women’s university, Mumbai and MSc in Health sciences from University of Pune.
She has overall 20 plus years’ experience in Social Research and Public Health. She has expertise in development of proposals, project management, budgets execution and administration. She held responsible positions in executing projects on sensitive issues as HIV, Gender, Disability, Adolescent sexuality. She has worked on various projects funded by national and international agencies. She is one of the core team members for the pioneering work of establishing Program for Primary Prevention of Sexual Violence (PPPSV) in India.

Email Id: v.tol@kemhrcpune.org

Dr. Yajnik, MD, FRCP is a Professor and Director of Diabetes Unit, King Edward Memorial Hospital, Pune, India. He is also an honorary Visiting Fellow, MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, Southampton, UK, honorary Visiting Professor, Department of Molecular Medicine, University of Exeter, UK and adjunct Professor, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune, India.

Dr. Yajnik’s special interest is to investigate the high susceptibility of Indians to diabetes and related disorders. He is well known for his description of the ‘thin-fat’ Indian which describes the fact that though not obese by international criteria, Indians are adipose (high body fat percent). Dr Yajnik specializes in the intrauterine programming of diabetes and has demonstrated a possible role for maternal micronutrient nutrition in its aetiology. He is a founder member and the President of SNEHA- India (Society for Natal Effects on Health in Adults) and a founder member of the International DOHaD society (Developmental Origins of Health and Disease).

He is the recipient of the Helmut Mehnert award of International Diabetes Federation (2009), the David Barker medal of the International DOHaD society (2011) and the Outstanding Investigator Award of the World India Diabetes Foundation (2016). Dr Yajnik is advisor to many organizations including Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), India, WHO (Geneva), FIGO (Federation International of Gynecology and Obstetrics) and the Wellcome Trust, London, UK. Dr. Yajnik has published over 250 scientific papers, reviews and chapters in prestigious journals and books.

Email ID: csyajnik@gmail.com
diabetes@kemdiabetes.org