Prestigious John Dirks Gairdner global health award for Dr Gagandeep Kang

She is the first Indian woman to get this award and says it is a huge honour for all the work that she and her colleagues did while at Christian Medical College, Vellore. The focus of Dr Kang’s work has been on childhood diarrhoea disease and comprehensive studies, including the work on vaccines. Dr Kang previously was a Professor at the Department of Gastrointestinal Science at CMC, Vellore and later executive director of the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, Faridabad. After her superannuation from CMC, Dr Kang continues to work on diarrhoea in children and making better vaccines. She also became the first Indian woman to be elected Fellow of the Royal Society.

The Toronto-based Gairdner Foundation was set up in 1958 with a donation from philanthropist James A Gairdner. The awards have become Canada’s most prestigious prize for breakthrough research conducted around the world in biomedical science. Five international awards plus one for advancing global health are bestowed annually. Recipients also collect $100,000 each.

It was at the UK Public Health Laboratory in 1991 that Dr Kang developed an interest in rotavirus — the most common cause of diarrhoea in the world. She would then for the next three decades conduct research in India and internationally, paving the way for the development and widespread uptake of rotavirus vaccines that have saved millions of lives.

Recently while delivering a lecture at the UK Academy of Medical Sciences (published in The Lancet), Dr Kang said that the Indian Rotavirus vaccine story illustrates many of the opportunities, necessary enabling environment and challenges of creating products that are important to global health.