Leadership

Dr. Sachin Sarode has done his Masters in Oral Pathology and Microbiology from Government Dental College and Hospital, Aurangabad and Ph. D. from Dr. D. Y. Patil Vidyapeeth, Pune. He has received prestigious Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral and Research Fellowship award from The Ohio State University, College of Dentistry, Columbus, USA. He received award for ‘Outstanding Research Faculty’ by the hands of Honorable Union Minister Human Resource and Development, Government of India. He is editor member of World Health Organization for the Blue Book series on Tumors of Head and Neck Region.

Dr. Sarode has published more than 350 publications in reputed national and international journals to his credit with more than 2000 citations and 27 h index. The some of the high impact factor journals include Lancet and Lancet Oncology. He contributed six book chapters for Springer nature publishers.

Dr. Sarode has 8 patents and 12 copyrights to his credit. The patent on metabolomics purification system (Novel Vertical Tube Gel Electrophoresis System) has been adopted worldwide. Till date Dr. Sarode has received 20 awards at different national and international platform. He has been invited as a guest speaker at 10 national and international conferences. He is managing editor of Journal of Dental Research and Review and associate editor of prestigious journals such as Medical Hypotheses and Journal of Oral Biology and Craniofacial Research.

Research Experience:

Worked for the Indian Council of Medical Research in various capacities from 1986 to 2020. Initially, I took part in clinical trials related to filariasis, abdominal TB, pulmonary TB, lymph node TB and renal TB when I joined the Tuberculosis Research Centre in 1986. From 1988 onwards, I was associated with epidemiological studies related to HIV-1, HIV-2 and HIV associated tuberculosis at the National Institute of Virology and then from 1991 onwards at the National AIDS Research Institute. My research interests have also focused on subtyping of HIV in India (subtype C, A, B, and recombinants), development of an HIV Virus Bank at NARI in India, on anti-HIV-drug resistance molecular epidemiology studies carried out in HIV infected individuals, the use of ART in HIV infected individuals, and later on with the studies on the management of HIV as well as HIV associated tuberculosis, which were funded by the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG), Indian Council of Medical Research and by the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO). While at NARI, I helped to establish the HIV drug resistance laboratory, carried out molecular epidemiological studies on monitoring for HIV-1 drug resistance in the Indian setting with the assistance of WHO and NACO in India and the results showed that both in Maharashtra and in Tamil Nadu, the incidence of HIV Drug Resistance was around 9% in those who were freshly started on first line ART regimen at the end of one year of ART. Prevalence of HIV-1 drug resistance was also studied in primigravida women in the Kakinada region of Andhra Pradesh an the results obtained have been published as a manuscript. The results of the HIV drug resistance testing was very helpful in guiding physicians to decide on which ART regimen to use in those failing on first line ART regimens.

The results of the ACTG 5175 study (for which I was the PI at NARI in Pune) showed that a tenofovir based ART regimen was less toxic than the ART regimens containing AZT. This helped to formulate guidelines for using Tenofovir in the first line ART regimens in India. I was also associated with studies related to prevention of transmission of HIV from mother to child using nevirapine and these studies were carried out in collaboration with Sassoon General Hospital, NARI and Johns Hopkins University. These studies also helped to formulate the NACO guidelines for the prevention of HIV transmission from HIV infected mother to their children using a safe three drug ART regimen in HIV positive pregnant women.

I was also associated with the HPTN 052 study where the results showed that if ART was started early when CD4 counts were high (>500 cells/cu.mm), then HIV transmission could be prevented in the discordant couple setting and it could also prevent the onset of tuberculosis in the HIV infected study participants. While I was at the National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (NIRT) from 2015 to 2020, I helped to initiate the VPM 1002 Vaccine Trial for the prevention of TB in asymptomatic household contacts of TB cases in the Chennai region.

I was also associated with the initiation and conduct of the National TB Prevalence Survey carried out all over India during the period 2017 to 2020. This survey has recently been completed. This was a collaborative effort between ICMR, Central TB Division and the WHO.

I was associated with the evaluation of the point of care (POC) Truenat Real-Time PCR assay for the diagnosis of tuberculosis and the results of the study helped the assay to be taken up by the Government of India for the diagnosis of TB by the Central TB Program in India and also helped in obtaining the approval by WHO for the use of the Truenat Assay for detection of TB in India and in the international settings. This project for evaluation of the Truenat Assay for TB was funded by the Indian Council of Medical Research, Department of Biotechnology and the World Health Organization.

The COVID epidemic broke in India in 2019 and I helped to establish the COVID laboratory at NIRT in Chennai. In addition, I was an investigator in the National Serosurvey for COVID carried out by the ICMR in 2020.

I superannuated in June 2020 from the ICMR and joined the Dr. D. Y. Patil Medical College, Hospital and Research Centre as the Director, Medical Research in August 2020 and have been associated COVID related and tuberculosis related research studies. In addition, I have been involved with monitoring of the research activities of all the Departments at Dr. D. Y. Patil Medical College, Hospital and Research Centre for NAAC, NMC and NIRF related activities.

Publications: 164 publications in journals and 11 Chapters in books

Research Projects: 23 research projects either as Principal Investigator (PI),Co- PI or Investigator Helped to make a videofilm for creating awareness on tuberculosis and this video is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puAypRbJEJk

Dr. Ramesh Bhonde joined Dr. D. Y. Patil Vidyapeeth, (DPU) Pune, as Director (Research) in September 2016. Dental pulp stem cell culture facility and Regenerative Medicine Lab has been established in March 2018 under his guidance at DPU. Currently he is a Emeritus Scientist at DPU. Earlier he served as Professor & Dean, at the School of Regenerative Medicine, Bangalore for the last 5 years. He superannuated from National Center for Cell Science Pune as Scientist ‘F’ and joined Stempeutics Research Pvt. Ltd. Bangalore as Technical Director and then moved to Stempeutics Research Malaysia branch in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He has been working in the field of pancreatic regeneration in diabetes for the past 30 years. He did his Ph. D at NIV Pune. His areas of interest and expertise include Stem cells, Regenerative Biology, Tissue banking and engineering with special reference to the cultivation of fastidious cells such as hepatocytes, vascular endothelial cells, and islets of Langerhans. He is well trained in Mesenchymal stem cell technology. Being a zoologist he has handled several projects dealing with Development of fish cell lines of Indian origin and culture of Amoebocytes from Horseshoe crab. He has extensively worked on in vitro generation of islets from pancreatic and non-pancreatic stem cells. He showed that multiple injections of unfractionated bone marrow reverse experimental diabetes in mice His pioneering work on stem cells in breast milk is well appreciated by scientific community. He has guided till now 23 Ph. D students. He has 328 publications indexed on Google Scholar, 264 on Scopus, and 235 on PubMed., He has total citations12110 , h index 58 and i 10 index 179 Dr. Bhonde authored 10 book chapters and he is a recipient of Dr. TMA Pai Endowment Chair in Islet Engineering & Banking in October 2013 and Dr C.M. Habubullah Annual Oration Award in January 2014. Subsequently he is awarded Dr TMA Pai Endowment chair second time to work on Stem cell solution to Insulin resistance (2015-16).Recently he has been inducted as an Editorial Board Member of the Journal “Medical Hypotheses”. In the latest AD Scientific Index 2021 of World Scientists Ranking, he is amongst top 5 % and First in DPU

ORCID id https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9955-2056

Dr. A. L. Kakrani, MD Professor of Clinical Eminence in Medicine and Director Academic Collaborations, Dr. D. Y. Patil medical College Pimpri, Pune 411018

• Past Professor and Head, Department of Medicine, BJ Govt Medical College & Sassoon General Hospital, Pune and Dr. D. Y. Patil Medical College, Pune
• Served as Dean, Faculty of medicine from 2009 to 2018 for Dr. D. Y. Patil Vidyapeeth, Pune

Academic Qualifications:

• M.B.B.S & M.D. (Internal Medicine) from Devi Ahilya Vishwa Vidyalaya, Indore

Professional Memberships/ Achievements:

• Reviewer & Member, International Advisory Board for 5 consecutive editions of Davidson’s Principles and Practice of Medicine, Elsevier Publication, UK (2006, 2010, 2014 & 2018, 2022)
• Reviewer & Member, International Advisory Board of 24^th & 25^th edition of Hutchison’s Clinical Methods (2018 & 2022 editions) Elsevier, UK
• Contributed a chapter in Davidson’s Clinical Case Book (1^st & 2^nd Edition), Elsevier, UK & API Textbook of Medicine (8^th Edition)
• Awarded Fogarty grants for training in Principles of Clinical Epidemiology & for AIDS Intensive Training & Research Program from Fogarty grants of NIH, USA, attended the course at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA in June/July 2006.
• Life Member, Association of Physicians of India & Vice President, API, Pune Branch
• Awarded Fellowship of Indian College of Physicians (FICP) in 2004
• Life Member, Indian Society of Gastroenterology & President, Pune Society of Gastroenterology, Pune
• Member, IDSA (USA) & CIDS
• Member, National Advisory Board, Journal of Association of Physicians of India (1999-2009), Member,
• Worked as member, National Technical Resource Group (TRG) on Anti-Retroviral Therapy in HIV & AIDS, NACO, Government of India
• Worked as Faculty for National Vector Borne Diseases Directorate, Govt of India.
• Member, Maharashtra State Covid Death Audit Committee
• Presently Principal Investigator/Coinvestigator for many NIH (USA) funded clinical studies
• Medical teacher for more than 45 years,
• More than 100 publications in National & International journals

Prof. Jayanta K. Pal, the current Emeritus Professor of Dr. D. Y. Patil Biotechnology & Bioinformatics (DYPBBI) is an eminent educationist. After completing an illustrious tenure of 25 years at S.P. Pune University, he was invited to join as the Director of this institute in December 2016. He continued in this position till 2^nd March 2023 and thereafter joined this current position. During his last 6 years at DYPBBI, he has proven himself as a good mentor and administrator besides being an excellent and passionate teacher. He has enhanced the teaching-learning exercise, administration and research and has brought in a few nationally competitive institutional funding like DST FIST, approval of AICTE for the professional courses at DYPBBI. He is an inspiration to both teaching and student communities of DYPBBI.

Prof. Pal did his Ph. D. in Developmental Biology from the University of Pune. After a long 8 years of post- Ph. D. research training experience at a few prestigious Universities/Institutes like, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US), Institute Jacques Monod, Paris (France), Tufts University (US), Prof Pal joined SP Pune University in 1992. At SPPU, he was a Professor and the Head, Department of Biotechnology for 10 years. The Department of Biotechnology, SPPU earned a good reputation in postgraduate teaching and research in Biotechnology under his leadership. Indeed, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Science & Technology, New Delhi entrusted him with the responsibility to initiate the DBT-JRF programme for Ph. D. Fellowship as the Founder Coordinator. He successfully implemented this programme and continued for 13 years in parallel with his headship of the Department.

Due to his good contribution in scientific research, including mentoring students for Ph. D. (#20), he was elected as a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India and also a Fellow of the Maharashtra Academy of Sciences. He has received many national awards including the Best Teacher Award of the Society of Biological Chemists, India. His research areas have been, 1) Regulation of gene expression in mammals during various cytoplasmic stresses, and in Leishmania donovani, a protozoan parasite, 2) Molecular diagnostics for anemia and lead-poisoning in humans. He has published a total number of 105 research papers and reviews including a few book chapters, many in very prestigious international journals like Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA. He is also credited with the senior authorship of a book on Fundamentals of Molecular Biology (Oxford University Press) and a US patent for his invention. His expertise is nationally recognized and he has been a member/ Chairman of various Task Forces/ Expert Committees of DBT, DST, CSIR and UGC. He is a reviewer of research projects and research articles for many national and international journals. He has travelled many countries including France, Poland, UK and USA under international fellowships and collaborations.

Dr. Asmita Wele is the Director Research at Dr. D. Y. Patil College of Ayurved and Research Center. She has earned her B. A. M. S. and M. D. degrees from the University of Poona (SPPU). Additionally, she has completed GCP Training by CDSCO and EC-IRB training by DAIDS supported by NIH and completed certificate courses on Designs of Clinical Trial, Manuscript preparation, Peer Reviewer Training, and Book Writing. Currently, she is a member of Pharmacopoeia Commission of Indian Medicine and Homoeopathy (PCIM&H). She had been the professor and head of the department of Rasashastra and Bhaishajyakalpana [Ayurveda pharmacology] at College of Ayurveda Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University in Pune, India. She is a faculty of MUHS for teaching Research Methodology. She successfully completed her 3-year tenure at Hungary as chair professor and has been awarded Honorary Professorship at University of Debrecen, Hungary.

Professor Asmita is an acclaimed researcher who has done projects with Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Ministry of AYUSH. Designing and execution of research projects of various types, guiding master and doctoral students is a part of her routine activities. She is an eminent educationist and mentor to many students of Ayurveda from India and abroad. She is often invited to be a Ph.D. referee for RMIT university, Melbourne, Australia. She has published over 40 research papers in Scopus and Web of Science, also a patent. Her articles and chapters are published in books by Tylor and Francis (CRC press) and Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), UK. She has authored a book titled Principles of Research for Ayurveda: Applied Research Methodology. She has contributed to the preparation of two documents of World Health Organization; The WHO Benchmarks for the Training of Ayurveda and Practice of Ayurveda which are published in 2022.

Professor Asmita is a peer reviewer for some indexed journals like European Journal of Integrative Medicine etc. from Elsevier, Scopus, and PubMed databases. She has been the associate editor of Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine, India, and Journal of Natural Health Product Research (NHPRS), Canada. She has contributed substantially as the member of AYUSH-International Co-operation committee, of scientific advisory committee of Gujarat Ayurveda University, Jamnagar and of BoS and Academic Council of BHU, Varanasi; and of RGUHS, Bangalore. She was a member of AYUSH Task Force Committee for making COVID 19 advisory. 

Professor Dr. Asmita Wele belongs to the legacy of the famous Dada Vaidya family from Goa. She has a substantial international exposure over the past 35 years of her career in the field of Traditional Complementary Integrative Medicine especially Ayurved. Her deliberations with international stakeholders since her student years have honed her interpersonal and administrative skills. She is a good orator who has delivered about 150 lectures as a Resource person in several interdisciplinary workshops and conferences organized by the support of ICMR, AICTE, AYUSH, CCRAS and ADMA etc. She has delivered popular lectures on Yoga and Ayurveda in Hungary and other European countries. She has organized many seminars, workshops, CME training programs and conferences in India and abroad. Her areas of special interest are Integrative medicine, Asthma, Cancer and Neuropsychology and Nutrition apart from her expertise in Ayurveda drug development.

Dr. Asmita has earned university distinction for Sanskrit language (1985). She is the university topper in Rasashastra Bhaishajyakalpanavigyan, at second professional year of BAMS. She is the recipient of Gold medal for MD dissertation [1996] and recipient of ‘Best scientist - 2005’ award in the name of late vaidya M. V. Kolhatkar by VPYV Khadiwale Vaidyak Samshodhan Sanstha (A renowned organization in the field of Ayurveda).

Dr. Sachin S. Vernekar is a distinguished academician and administrator with an illustrious career spanning over four decades. He began his teaching journey in 1983 as a Lecturer at the Institute of Management, Goa, and in 1984, he joined Bharati Vidyapeeth Institute of Management, Solapur. Since then, his contributions to education and institutional leadership have been exemplary.

With 41 years of teaching and research experience and over 30 years (concurrent ) of administrative leadership, Dr. Sachin Vernekar has served as Director of various reputed Business Schools under Bharti Vidyapeeth. He was In-charge of the Delhi Campus (2001–2012) and later the Erandawane Campus (2016–2023) of Bharati Vidyapeeth. He also held the prestigious position of Dean, Faculty of Management Studies (2013–2023).

Dr. Vernekar served Bharati Vidyapeeth (Deemed to be University) until July 31, 2023, and then worked with N. L. Dalmia Institute of Management (Aug–Oct 2023). Currently, he serves as Emeritus Professor (Advisory) and Research Head at Dr. D. Y. Patil Vidyapeeth, Pimpri, Pune, from November 1, 2023 onwards.

A committed researcher and mentor, he has guided 18 Ph.D. scholars (with 3 more in progress), published 79 research papers, and has organized over 400 academic events including conferences, seminars, workshops, and MDPs.

Dr. Vernekar’s dedication to academic excellence and social commitment has earned him numerous accolades, including the “Maharaja Yashwantrao Holkar Award”, “International Speaker Award-2009” (Bangladesh), “Meri Dilli Puraskar”, and “Seva Gaurav Puraskar” by Bharati Vidyapeeth.

He holds memberships in several prestigious bodies including AIMA, AIMS, AMDISA, ISTE, IIPA, NHRDN, and Higher Education Forum. He represented institutional members in the Governing Council of AIMA (2007–2009 and 2010–2012) and has been a member of expert committees for AICTE, NBA, DEC, and UGC since 2001.

Dr. Vernekar has also represented India in over 20 countries through academic visits and faculty exchange programs, notably at Linnaeus University, Sweden. Beyond academics, he is actively involved in extension and social outreach activities, championing causes such as anti-smoking, road safety, community entrepreneurship, and environmental protection.

His visionary leadership, academic prowess, and enduring commitment to holistic education continue to inspire the academic community.