Dorairaj Prabhakaran and Clara Chow, eminent cardiologist-scientists who have made a difference in cardiovascular health globally, and in their respective countries (India and Australia), received some of their early-career training at PHRI.
Their stories, “How an ‘accidental doctor’ became a renowned cardiologist” (Prabhakaran) and “Bringing people together to drive change” (Chow) published this week in European Heart Journal, include some of that history:
“Prof. Prabhakaran trained at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, as a Research Fellow in 2002–04, under Prof. Salim Yusuf, where he learnt several aspects of large international collaborative studies and building teams, which helped him immensely on building a team of cardiovascular researchers in India.”
Since that time, among his collaborations with PHRI has been the TIPS studies looking at the polypill for cardiovascular disease prevention. Dorairai Prabhakaran is Vice President (Research and Policy) at the Public Health Foundation of India, and Executive Director of the Centre for Chronic Disease Control in New Delhi.
Clara Chow says that many years ago, after she wrote to Salim Yusuf, “I distinctly remember being interviewed on a park bench outside the conference centre in Barcelona by Salim…I wanted to go and learn clinical trials from him; he was fascinated by what I had done in international public health and wanted me to work on his PURE study.”
Clara Chow continues to work on PURE today, and has also worked with PJ Devereaux on clinical trials including VISION. She is the founder and Academic Director of Westmead Applied Research Centre, University of Sydney, and Program Director, community-based cardiac services at Westmead Hospital, and the first female President of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand.
The European Heart Journal articles contain fascinating details of these outstanding researchers: the life journeys they took to get there; their personal interests and how they balance those with a full life of scientific discoveries and international collaborations. Download the [PDF] articles, Euro Heart J_Prabhakaran and Euro Heart J_Chow.
We were fortunate that Clara Chow and Dorairaj Prabhakaran, both International Fellows of PHRI, were able to participate in PHRI’s 20th anniversary symposium in Hamilton, Canada in November 2019. They appear in this video about the event – Dr. Chow starts around 10 seconds in; Prof Prabhakaran at 3:08 minutes.
Dorairaj Prabhakaran with PHRI’s Dipika Desai and Sonia Anand at our 20th anniversary symposium in Hamilton, Canada, 2019.
Clara Chow, centre, with PHRI’s Sanjit Jolly and Darryl Leong at the 2019 “Future of Global Health” research symposium.
