National Award for Excellence in Academic Clinical Research
ISCR's 6th National Award for Excellence in Academic Clinical Research 2026
6th National Award for Excellence in Academic Clinical Research 2026

EARLY CAREER CATEGORY

Dr. Raktim Swarnakar
Assistant Professor, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, AIIMS Delhi
MBBS, MD (AIIMS, New Delhi)

Prize winning Research Project

Experience - Dr. Raktim has 9+ years of experience in Medicine
Achievements - He is recipient of:
  • Best Young Scientist Award, AOCPRM 2025
  • DARM/IPMR Rehabilitation Research Award 2024
  • IFNR Young Investigator Award 2024
  • IAPMR Gold Medal Awards 2019 & 2023
  • Best Poster Award IFNRCON 2022
  • Sudhir Kumar Banerjee Memorial Award 2024
  • ICMR MD thesis Grant (2018-2022)
  • Sanath Kumar Sarkar Memorial Award 2023
  • Academic and Research Excellence Award 2022 & 2023, RDA, AIIMS, New Delhi
  • International MDS Travel Grant Award 2019, MDSICON Travel Grant Award 2019, Mrs Dwarka Prasad Trust Travel Grant Award 2019
  • Critic Award (2nd) 2nd Research Day, AIIMS, New Delhi
  • International fellow scholarship, South Korea, 2025
Total Publications: > 40
Book chapters: 3
Reviewer: Multiple international journals

6th National Award for Excellence in Academic Clinical Research 2026

MID CAREER CATEGORY

Dr. Ashish Kakkar
Additional Professor, Department of Pharmacology, PGIMER, Chandigarh

Prize winning Research Project

  • MD, DM (Clinical Pharmacology)
  • Fellow of British Pharmacological Society
  • Associate Editor: Frontiers in Medicine, Academic Editor: PLOS ONE
  • Member Secretary: Institute Ethics Committee (Extramural), PGIMER & IEC Sub-committee for Serious Adverse Events
  • Joint Director, Research, Society of Antimicrobial Stewardship Practices (SASPI)
  • Principal Investigator: Extramural funded studies from Indian Council of Medical Research, ANRF, Others

Dr Pramila Kalra MD DM FACE FAMS FRCP(EDIN)
Professor and Senior consultant of Endocrinology -M S Ramaiah Medical College and Memorial hospitals, Bengaluru, India

Prize winning Research Project

Experience : 18 years after completing DM Endocrinology Publications More than 90 scientific publications and 35 chapters
Achievements
  • Received grants from BIRAC, IMPRINT, STARS, DBT, ESI
  • AR Sheth award for best oral presentation at ESICON 2006; won best oral paper award at ITSCON 2013 and 2019
  • Won AV Gandhi award for excellence in Endocrinology for the year 2008
  • President-Elect of the Indian Thyroid Society
  • FACE awarded in 2017, FRCP in 2021, FITS at ITSCON 2023, FAMS in 2024
  • Executive Editor of Thyroid Research and Practice
  • Academic Council member of IPATH

6th National Award for Excellence in Academic Clinical Research 2026

SENIOR CAREER CATEGORY

Dr. Ambuj Roy
Prof of Cardiology & Head, Skill, e-Learning & Telemedicine Facility, AIIMS, New Delhi
Member, Governing Body, AIIMS, Rishikesh

Prize winning Research Project

  • Fellow American College of Cardiology, Royal College of Physicians (Edinburgh), National Academy of Medical Sciences & National Academy of Sciences of India
  • MeMember, Task Force Committee of ICMR for Cardiovascular Research
  • Nodal Officer, National Resource Centre, National Medical College Network
  • Over 300 publications, nearly 70,000 citations, and h-Index of 55
  • Features in Stanford University's list of the World's Top 2% Scientists for the year 2022-2025
  • Principal Investigator (ongoing): FLUENT-MI trial, IAMD trial and AROMA study

Dr. Jeemon Panniyammakal
Additional Professor, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Trivandrum

Prize winning Research Project

  • Dr. Jeemon is a trained epidemiologist with a PhD in Medical Cardiology from the University of Glasgow, UK
  • He has over 20 years of experience at the national level
  • He focuses on cardiovascular disease epidemiology and multimorbidity
  • He is a recipient of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in Medicine (2021)
  • He is also a senior fellow of the DBT-Wellcome Trust India Alliance
  • Holds research grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council (Australia), Medical Research Council (UK), and the National Institute for Health Care Research (UK)
  • He has published over 190 research articles with over 200,000 citations

ISCR's 5th National Award for Excellence in Academic Clinical Research 2025
5th National Award for Excellence in Academic Clinical Research 2025

MID CAREER CATEGORY

Dr. Amol N Patil
Additional Professor, Department of Pharmacology, PGIMER, Chandigarh
MBBS, MD, and DNB in Pharmacology

Prize winning Research Project

Research interests - Pharmacokinetics, Pharmacogenetics, Clinical trials, Animal Pharmacology
Experience - Dr Amol has 15 + years of experience in teaching pharmacology,
Achievements He is recipient of -
  • KVPY fellowship from IISc Bangalore,
  • Early career research award from Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India.
  • Consecutive three year awards from PGIMER, Chandigarh for best clinical research in Faculty category

5th National Award for Excellence in Academic Clinical Research 2025

EARLY CAREER CATEGORY

Dr. Anusha Natarajan
Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacology,
Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), Puducherry, India

Prize winning Research Project

  • Dr. Anusha N. is an accomplished Assistant Professor at JIPMER, specialising in pharmacology and clinical research.
  • She holds an MBBS and an MD in Pharmacology from the Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences, where she secured the University Gold Medal for her academic excellence.
  • Awarded the Perunthalaivar Kamarajar Scholarship during her MBBS program
  • Winner of multiple awards at national and international conferences for her research and presentations
  • Author of 26 publications in indexed journals, contributing significantly to pharmacology and healthcare research
  • Her Research areas of interest include Rational and Safe Use of Medicines, Drug Utilisation Studies.

Dr. Basavaraj Poojar
Faculty in Pharmacology, Kasturba Medical College Mangalore, Manipal Academy of Higher Education,
Karnataka, Manipal, 576104, India

Prize winning Research Project

  • Holds a PhD in Clinical Pharmacology from Manipal Academy of Higher Education
  • Has 8+ years of experience in research and academia
  • Member of the WHO Global Research Agenda on Knowledge Translation (KT) Delphi Committee
  • Member of the Afromed Scientific and Ethics Review Board, Zambia.
  • Awarded:
    • 4 National travel grants from various agencies and 1 International travel grant
    • 3 international conference registration grants
    • Received a research grant as Co-Principal Investigator (Co-PI) from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)
  • Academic contributions include:
    • 24 publications in peer-reviewed journals and 2 book chapters

ISCR's 4th National Award for Excellence in Academic Clinical Research 2024
4th National Award for Excellence in Academic Clinical Research 2024

MID CAREER CATEGORY

Dr. Venkatraman Radhakrishnan
Professor and Head of the Department of Medical and Pediatric Oncology
Cancer Institute (W.I.A), Adyar, Chennai

Prize winning Research Project

MULTI-CENTER, PHASE 3, RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL, COMPARING DAUNORUBICIN AND ARAC (DA) VERSUS ARAC, DAUNORUBICIN, AND ETOPOSIDE (ADE) INDUCTION
CHEMOTHERAPY IN PEDIATRIC ACUTE MYELOID LEUKEMIA (INPOG-AML-01-14).

4th National Award for Excellence in Academic Clinical Research 2024

Early Career category

Dr Ishita Gupta
Assistant Director cum Research Scientist,
Centre for Chronic Disease Control, New Delhi, India

Prize winning Research Project

Epidemiological pattern of COVID-19 and its association with periodontal health in an urban Indian cohort.

ISCR's 3rd National Award for Excellence in Academic Clinical Research 2022
3rd National Award for Excellence in Academic Clinical Research 2022
The third edition of the awards had close to 60 applications from over 25 Medical and Research Institutions, representing all regions across India. This year a third category of awards was added for Senior researchers who had completed more than 20 years since their specialty degree. The winners were invited to present their research work at the 15th Annual ISCR Conference (Virtual) on 5th March 2022. .

SENIOR CAREER CATEGORY

Dr. Prabhakaran Dorairaj
MD, DM (Cardiology), MSc
Vice President (Research and Policy) and Director,
Centre for Control of Chronic Conditions,
Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), Gurugram

Prize winning Research Project

Effects of a Yoga Based Cardiac Rehabilitation Program (YOGA- CARE) on Cardiovascular Health - A Clinical Trial (India) and a Mechanistic Study (UK)

3rd National Award for Excellence in Academic Clinical Research 2022

MID CAREER CATEGORY

Dr. Deepti Suri
Professor of Paediatric Allergy and Immunology,
Post-graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research
(PGIMER), Chandigarh

Prize winning Research Project

To study the nuclear role of WASp Protein in non- erythroid blood cell compartments of patients with Wiscott Aldrich Syndrome

Dr. Manjul Tripathi
Associate Professor, Dept. of Neurosurgery, Gamma Knife
Radiosurgery, Post-graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh

Prize winning Research Project

Safety and Efficacy of Stereotactic Radiosurgery in the Management of Hypothalamic Hamartoma.

3rd National Award for Excellence in Academic Clinical Research 2022

EARLY CAREER CATEGORY

Dr. Ankur Kumar Jindal
Assistant Professor of Paediatric Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology,
Post-graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research
(PGIMER), Chandigarh

Prize winning Research Project

Assessment of T cell abnormalities in patients and carrier females of X-linked agammaglobulinemia (XLA): a flow cytometry and next generation sequencing based study from India

Dr. Mohammad Shafi Kuchay
Consultant, Division of Endocrinology and Diabetes,
Medanta The Medicity, Gurugram

Prize winning Research Project

Effect of dulaglutide on liver fat in patients with type 2 diabetes and NAFLD: randomized controlled trial (D-LIFT Trial)

Dr. Nipun Verma
Associate Professor, Department of Hepatology,
Post-graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research
(PGIMER), Chandigarh

Prize winning Research Project

APASL-ACLF research consortium-artificial intelligence (AARC-AI) model precisely predicts outcomes in acute-on-chronic liver failure patients.

Winners of the 2nd National Awards for Excellence in Academic Clinical Research 2021
ISCR through the Academic Consortium for Clinical Research in India (ACCRI) initiative had for the first time instituted the National Awards for Excellence in Academic Clinical Research in 2020, which elicited a very good response with 23 applications. After a rigorous evaluation process, 4 academic researchers in total (two in each career category) were confirmed as winners and received the awards at the 13th Annual ISCR Conference in January 2020 at Mumbai.

MID CAREER CATEGORY

Dr. Bhavuk Garg
Additional Professor, Dept. of Orthopaedics
All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) New Delhi

Prize winning Research Study

Role of 3D printing in complex spinal deformity correction

Dr. Prashant Kumar
Faculty Scientist
Institute of Bioinformatics, Bengaluru

Prize winning Research Study

Patient derived circulating tumour cell cluster phenotype allows monitoring response to treatment and predicts survival

Winners of the 2nd National Awards for Excellence in Academic Clinical Research 2021
The second edition of the awards saw an increase in participation with 35 applicants competing for the awards with 4 winners in two career categories. The winners were invited to present their research work and received the awards at the 14th Annual ISCR Conference (Virtual) in March 2021.

EARLY CAREER CATEGORY

Dr. Kavita Singh
Research Scientist and Epidemiologist
Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) Gurugram, Haryana

Prize winning Research Study

Collaborative care in secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease in India

Dr. Tuhina Banerjee
Professor, Microbiology
Institute of Medical Sciences Banaras Hindu University Varanasi

Prize winning Research Study

Mutations at novel sites in pmrA/B and IpxA/D Genes and Reduced Fitness in Colistin-Resistant Acinotobacter Baumanii from a Tertiary Care Hospital, India

Winners of the 1st National Awards for Excellence in Academic Clinical Research 2020

MID CAREER CATEGORY

Dr. Arpana A. Iyengar
Professor, Department of Paediatric Nephrology
St John's National Academy of Health Sciences Bengaluru

Prize winning Research Study

Determining the optimal dose of Cholecalciferol supplementation in Children with Chronic kidney disease – A multi-centre randomised controlled trial

Dr. George M. Varghese
Professor and Head, Department of Infectious Diseases
Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu

Prize winning Research Study

Performance of Molecular and Serologic Tests for the Diagnosis of Scrub Typhus

Winners of the 1st National Awards for Excellence in Academic Clinical Research 2020

EARLY CAREER CATEGORY

Dr. Kedar Mehta
Assistant Professor, Community Medicine
GMERS Medical College & Hospital, Vadodara

Prize winning Research Study

Effect of "Mobile phone reminders and electronic tracking tool" (M-TRACK) on pre-treatment Loss to Follow up (LFU) among PLHIV under programme settings: An interventional study from Gujarat, India

Dr. Krithiga Shridhar
Epidemiologist
Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), Gurugram

Prize winning Research Study

Computer-Aided Diagnostic Tool for Early Detection of Oral Precancer and Cancer: Digital Image Analysis using Supervised Machine Learning Model