‘Stem cells are therapy, not mere experiments’

Stem cell therapy provide a promise of life to people with incurable diseases and is no longer only a research tool, opined Mammen Chandy, director, Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai.

Chandy was delivering the keynote address at the inaugural ceremony of a two-day seminar on national medicine update 2011 ‘Milestones in Medicine’ organised by the department of internal medicine of AFMC in Pune on Thursday.

Speaking on the recent trend by some private organisations undertaking stem cell banking, Chandy was of the opinion that there is a pressing need for a national regulatory body to oversee developments in stem cell research and its use.

Chandy called upon AFMC to initiate the process of setting up a national stem cell registry that could facilitate transplant therapy at the national level.   More than 200 delegates from across the country from the armed forces, public sector health care providers and the private sector participated in the two-day seminar.

Earlier in the day, director and commandant of the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC), Air Marshal GS Joneja, highlighted the need for medical professionals to constantly update their domain knowledge to help facilitate better patient care.

Joneja stressed on the need for integrating all specialities of medical care for the benefit of patients. Surgeon Vice-Admiral KM Suryanarayana, director-general medical services, said stem cell research has provided a ray of hope to patients suffering from diseases considered incurable so far and also towards better understanding of causes of various diseases. 

Senior AFMC docs pledge their eyes
Senior doctors at the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) gave a fillip to the fortnight-long, eye donation and awareness drive initiated by the AFMC.

On Friday afternoon, Air Marshal GS Joneja, director and commandant, AFMC, pledged to donate his eyes in front of a gathering of over 1,000 medical students and professionals at the ‘Inter-Collegiate Ophthalmic Quiz-2011’ conducted by the Department of Ophthalmology, AFMC.

With this, the AFMC achieved a landmark by registering 700 eye donation pledges in the last 15 days.

Air Marshal Joneja was also joined by dean and deputy commandant, Maj Gen Manoj Luthra, who also took the pledge. Air Marshal Joneja exhorted the audience to rise above the fear and dogma and donate their eyes to provide sight to the needy.

The Ophthalmic Quiz was the culmination of a two-week effort undertaken by the AFMC to raise awareness in the community about the social benefits of eye donation. Six teams from medical colleges of Pune participated in the quiz that saw the Bharatiya Vidyapeeth emerging as winner followed by the AFMC team.

Kyrgyzstan defence min visits NDA
Kyrgyzstan defence minister Major General Abibilla Kudayberdiev, accompanied by a high-level delegation, visited the National Defence Academy (NDA) on Thursday. The delegation was received by Lt Gen Jatinder Singh, Commandant NDA. They were briefed on the various training activities at the academy. The visit was on an invitation extended by India’s defence minister AK Antony during his visit to Kyrgz capital Biskek in July this year. India has progressively strengthened its bilateral defence cooperation with Kyrgyzstan in the fields of military exercises, training, jungle warfare, information technology and counter-terrorism over the last few years.

India’s ties with Kyrgyzstan are special and in sync with building ties with other Central Asian Republics, including Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan .The potential of Central Asian Republics, especially Kyrgyzstan is enormous.

The NDA continues to stand out as a global entity in military training. Interactions with foreign military academies have also increased manifold. There have been exchange programmes between cadets of NDA and those of the United States Military Academy (USMA) (Westpoint), USA; the Australian Defence Forces Academy (ADFA) and the National Defence Academy Japan; to name a few.

At present cadets from five friendly foreign countries including those from Kazakhstan and Tajikistan are being trained at the NDA.

The Kyrgyz delegation evinced keen interest in the functioning of the academy. A luncheon was also hosted by the Commandant in honour of the visiting delegation.