Washington, DC—June 6, 2012 Sandeep Kishore, Ph.D., post-doctoral fellow, Harvard Medical School in the Department of Global Health & Social Medicine, has been awarded one of two 2012 Raymond W. Sarber Awards. These awards, established in honor of Raymond W. Sarber for his contributions to the growth and advancement of ASM, recognize students for research excellence and potential at both the undergraduate and predoctoral levels. Kishore received the award for his achievements as a predoctoral student in the M.D./Ph.D. program at Weill Cornell Medical College. His nominator, Peter Hotez, founding Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, was "deeply impressed with his drive and ambition to infuse a sense of social purpose and action in graduate and medical education. Kishore constantly reminds graduate students of the importance of putting a social conscience behind science." Carl Nathan, Weill Cornell Medical College, calls him "a rare individual who is utterly devoted to good causes, singularly effective, everywhere at once, and leaves behind whirlwinds of activity that would otherwise not have stirred but once launched are self-sustaining."
Kishore received his B.S. in Biology from Duke University. He then earned his M.Sc. from the University of Oxford, where he was an Usher Cunningham Scholar in Medical Sciences. While in the laboratory of Kirk Deitsch at Weill Cornell Medical College, he made a fundamental discovery regarding the evolution of the basic transcriptional machinery of malaria parasites—a discovery that helped form the basis of his current research characterizing gene activation in the parasite responsible for malaria (Plasmodium falciparum). "Kishore has demonstrated the ability to utilize multiple approaches, including epidemiology, molecular biology, and computational analysis, to advance this project," says Deitsch. "This type of interdisciplinary approach is truly powerful, and in my opinion, represents the future of microbiology."
According to Kishore, "one of my top priorities was to develop a trainee pipeline to provide early and thorough exposure to interdisciplinary perspectives in global health. I wanted to attempt to answer the question: How does one integrate basic sciences and public health?" In 2006, Kishore developed and co-taught an elective curriculum at Weill Cornell Medical College that integrated economic, scientific, clinical, and public health perspectives on contemporary issues surrounding malaria. Posted on the web, this was the first open-source curriculum on neglected diseases, and garnered international attention at a medical education conference in Havana, Cuba in 2008. The course has since evolved into a full-fledged longitudinal, four-year curriculum managed by students and faculty with full administrative support. The elective curriculum now attracts 40% of the Weill Cornell first year medical class and features financial subsidies and support for research, applied public health, or clinical service abroad.
In addition to his outstanding research and classroom accomplishments, Kishore has impressed many with his efforts in global health advocacy and policy. He sensed a large gap between basic scientists and public health practitioners, and wanted to ensure technologies and health innovations were made available in developing countries. To address these concerns, he has made extensive contributions outside of the laboratory. In 2007, Kishore successfully advocated for the inclusion of a cholesterol-lowering statin on the World Health Organization's Model List of Essential Medicines. He has since petitioned the WHO to include a proton pump inhibitor and a modern beta blocker. In 2009, he served as an invited speaker for the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine (IOM) Board on Global Health for the IOM report "Promoting Cardiovascular Health in the Developing World." That same year, he founded the Young Professionals' Chronic Disease Network (YP-CDN), a collection of young leaders under the age of forty that advocates for policy change on chronic diseases from the bottom up. These four hundred leaders represent forty countries and over one hundred and seventy organizations. In 2010, he represented the YP-CDN as a civil society delegate to the United Nations General Assembly.
In addition to the above efforts, Kishore's health-related work has been featured in the popular press, including Scientific American, The Huffington Post, and The Scientist. He is a co-author of the forthcoming textbook Sick Societies, published by Oxford University Press. His technical writings in public health have appeared in a broad range of journals including PLoS Medicine, the Nature Reviews series, Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics, Globalization & Health, and Global Forum for Health Research. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the global NGO Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM). He is the first Lancet Prize winner for community service, and was a recipient of the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans in 2008.
To view Dr. Kishore's biosketch, please visit: http://www.asm.org/index.php/awards-grants/current-raymond-w-sarber-award-graduate-laureate.html
The Raymond W. Sarber Awards will be presented during the 112th General Meeting of the ASM, June 16 - 19, 2012 in San Francisco, California. ASM is the world's oldest and largest life science organization and has more than 40,000 members worldwide. ASM's mission is to advance the microbiological sciences and promote the use of scientific knowledge for improved health and economic and environmental well‐being.