Ganga Hospital Spine Research Team, headed by Dr.S. Rajasekaran, Coimbatore, has won the prestigious North American Spine Society Research Award for 2019 by the North American Spine Society (NASS) and the internationally renowned The Spine Journal (TSJ). For the first time, a research team from India has been recognized by the NASS and TSJ for their efforts in spine related research.

The award carries a cash prize of USD 10,000 and will also be published as a lead paper in ‘The Spine Journal’, which is the official journal of the North American Spine Society and has one of the highest impact factors for spine specialist international journals.

The Ganga Hospital Research Centre was established by Ganga Orthopedic Research and Education Foundation which is a recognized research centre of the Department of Science & Technology, India.

For the last many years, the research team has been performing cutting-edge clinical and basic science research in the field of low back pain and spinal cord injuries. Low back pain is the most common non-communicable disease of both the developed and developing world and disables millions of people every day. It is also the most common cause for the number of working man days lost.

Their research work entitled “Inflammaging Determines Health and Disease in Lumbar discs- Evidence from Differing Proteomic Signatures of Healthy, Aging and Degenerating Discs” analyses at a molecular level the cause for disc degeneration which is the major reason for low back pain. The research looked at the causative factors of disc disease at cellular level and also the possibility of sub-clinical infection as a potential cause for low back pain. The team has been invited to present their research work in the outstanding paper award session and will be honored at the annual meeting of NASS to be conducted at Chicago on September 26, 2019.

The research team headed by Prof.Dr.S.Rajasekaran (Principal Investigator) includes Dr. Chitraa Tangavel (Biotechnology Scientist), Prof M Raveendran, TNAU, Dr. Sri Vijayanand K S (Clinical Scientist), Dr. Dilip Chand Raja S (Clinical Scientist), Ms. Sharon Miracle Nayagam (Junior research officer- Biotechnology), Ms. Monica Steffi Matchado (Junior research office- Bioinformatics), Dr Ajoy Prasad Shetty and Dr Rishi Mugesh Kanna under the guidance of senior expert in Biotechnology Prof. K.Dharmalingam, Director, AMRF, Madurai, have been working on advanced proteomic technologies to identify solutions to intervertebrae disc pathologies, which is the commonest cause of low back pain.

This research has been recognized worldwide by numerous awards such as the prestigious ISSLS Awards, Euro Spine Worldwide Open Research Award, Asia Pacific Spine Society Awards and Brit Spine Award. The team has more than 200 international research publications in highly acclaimed peer reviewed journals.