Mumbai: A Mumbai-based Indian doctor, Dr Trupti Gilada-Baheti, will receive the esteemed Fellowship Award on HIV and Drug Abuse Research from the International Aids Society (IAS), National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and French National Agency for Research on Aids and Viral Hepatitis (ANRS) at the 20th International Aids Conference in Melbourne, Australia.
The Award, to be presented on July 23 at this major conference of researchers, policymakers and others committed to ending the pandemic, comprises an 18-month fellowship at Seattle under mentor Dr Ann Duerr for HIV Research, attendance at three international scientific events and an honour at Aids 2014.
Launched in 2009, these Fellowships are awarded annually to four recipients from around the world.
Dr Trupti is a medical postgraduate and convenor of the youth wing of the People’s Health Organisation, founded by her father Dr Ishwar Gilada, one of the foremost HIV physicians caring for the HIV affected for decades. He is the current president of Aids Society of India.
Dr Trupti started her work in HIV awareness with public announcements when she was less than 3 years old and later performed street plays with her younger sister Prapti, who is also a doctor specialising in microbiology. Stepping into her father’s shoes, she joined medicine, got the first rank in the state of Maharashtra for MBBS, and then completed her MD in Internal Medicine from KEM Hospital.
At the 16th Aids Conference in Toronto in 2006, she made the film Fear and Loathing and led the winner team at the MTV’s Staying Alive — a 48-hour film festival. Her film depicted stigma and discrimination attached to HIV and Aids. She aspires to work in the field of prevention, care and support in HIV and Aids in India on her return from the Fellowship in 2016.
Currently, she is postdoctoral fellow at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre, Department of Global Health and Epidemiology, University of Washingron, Seattle, USA, under Dr Ann Duerr. She is married to Dr Akshay Baheti, a radiologist, who is currently doing Body-Imaging Fellowship at the same university.
