January at LVPEI - LV Prasad Eye Institute

January at LVPEIAt the age of 2½ years, David Brown passed away much to the grief of his parents, Soona andEdward Brown, and sister Shirin. Now in their post retirement years, the Browns live in theSouth of France. Struck by the story of the Children’s Eye Care Centre at our Bhubaneswarcampus that had appeared on the BBC, Edward contacted me about three years ago, expressinghis desire to associate his son’s name for a programme of similar nature. This desire was nowrealized with the inauguration of “The David Brown Children’s Eye Care Centre” on the 29 th atour new tertiary care campus in Vijayawada, located in the central coastal part of our State.Both Soona and Edward were with us on the occasion, and expressed mixed emotions – tearyeyedwhile talking about David and delighted that this memorial for him will touch the lives ofhundreds of thousands of economically disadvantaged children, in the years to come. Thiscentre’s services will extend to 5 districts with an approximate population of 15 million.January had many other celebrations, in addition. Our Bhubaneswar campus, resplendent withits beautiful gardens, celebrated its 5 th anniversary on January 15 th with multiple new milestones- the groundbreaking of “Pathak Centre for Eye Care Education”, the inauguration of DalmiaOphthalmic Pathology Laboratory and the inaugural “Dr. Bijayananda Patnaik Lecture”. Themunificence of friends and well wishers, Kokil and S. K. Pathak made it possible for us toexecute our plans to expand our educational stream, while the generosity of M. S. Dalmia, anindustrialist, helped create the pathology laboratory. The Centre for Eye Care Education willcontribute significantly to our expansion efforts to triple our education capacity by 2015. TheOphthalmic Pathology Laboratory will contribute to better care, teaching and research. Dr. AP J Abdul Kalam, former President of India, was the Chief Guest at these celebrations. Theinaugural public education lecture in memory of well-known Delhi ophthalmologist (who hailedfrom Orissa) Dr. Bijayananda Patnaik was delivered by Dr. Kalam during the celebrations.Another major development in January was our first venture outside India as a technical partnerin the development of a “Centre of Excellence in Eye Care” in U.A.E. This state-of-the-arttertiary centre will be developed in the emirate of Ras Al Khima to serve the entire region.The ceremony marking the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) took place on24 th at Al Dhait Palace in the presence of His Royal Highness Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi,Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Ras Al Khaimah and the Crown Prince H H SheikhMohammed bin Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi. This centre will provide comprehensive eye healthservices in prevention, treatment and rehabilitation.The training of community eye health specialists is an important activity with us and this month,the 11 th batch of students of our Diploma in Community Eye Health (DCEH) from India, Nepaland Taiwan commenced their course.

One of the premier eye research meetings in the Asia region is Asia-ARVO, organised by alocal host in collaboration with the renowned international organization ARVO (Association forResearch in Vision and Ophthalmology). This month, Singapore Eye Research Institute hostedthe meeting. (The last one in early 2009 was hosted by us). Our group had a notablerepresentation with a total of 29 presentations, including six for invited talks. Three of ourfellows/graduate students were recipients of travel fellowships to attend this meeting.The highlight from our research centre this month was the 4 th Annual Champalimaud EyeResearch Symposium. Dr. Narsing Rao of Doheny Eye Institute at the University of SouthernCalifornia was the Champalimaud Lecturer. Jose Cunha-Vaz from the University of Coimbra,Portugal; Kanury Rao of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology fromDelhi, Pawan Sinha of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Joaquim Murta ofCoimbra, Portugal, were the other speakers, followed by presentations from our group.Leonor Beleza, President and Joao Botelho of the Champalimaud Foundation joined us on theoccasion of this outstanding symposium. Faculty and trainees from all our campusesparticipated. Continuing with the celebrations, our secondary centre at Markapuram inPrakasam district celebrated its third anniversary. The bond with Champalimaud Foundation iscontinuing to strengthen, and the Champalimaud Translational Centre for Eye Research (C-TRACER) is progressing very well. Based on this success, another C-TRACER was inauguratedat the University of Coimbra in Portugal in October 2010. The two C-TRACERs willcollaborate actively on a number of projects.One of the great assets of our Institute is our Board members. These comprise of luminariesfrom diverse sectors of India who make India proud and are a great source of support for us.Two of them have been selected for this year’s Republic Day honours by the President of India– Prof. Palle Rama Rao, a very distinguished scientist and educationist, who has made numerousseminal contributions to both these areas, with the Padma Vibhushan, and Dr. K. Anji Reddy, anentrepreneur par excellence, founder of a leading pharmaceutical corporation and a notedphilanthropist (our Hyderabad campus is named after him) with the Padma Bhushan. All of usat LVPEI were delighted with this news. These two join a number of others on our Board whowere similarly recognised in earlier years.One of the signatures of the LVPEI’s campuses is its greenery – “should look green whicheverway one looks outside from the ground floor level”. Again this year, our gardens maintainedtheir distinction, bagging the first (Kismatpur campus housing ICARE and Optometry School)and second (Kallam Anji Reddy campus in Banjara Hills) prizes from the Department ofHorticulture, Government of Andhra Pradesh. This is a tribute to the diligence of ourgardeners. To those who are not familiar, our gardens in Bhubaneswar and Visakhapatnam areeven more spectacular.Thus January indeed provided us a great start for 2011 as we look forward to an eventful year,including the beginning of our SILVER JUBILEE YEAR from June 1 st .Gullapalli N Rao