UM student sole Msian rep at Next Generation Scientist prog in Switzerland
KUALA LUMPUR: Navin Kumar Loganadan, a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) student at the Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya (UM) became the only Malaysian selected from among 20 scientists around the world to join the Novartis Next Generation Scientist (NGS) 2016 Programme for a three-month internship in Basel, Switzerland from June to August.
The NGS Programme is an intensive internship programme for talented and motivated research scientists from emerging countries. This programme is designed to foster both their scientific and professional development. Novartis is a global healthcare company based in Switzerland that provides solutions to address the evolving needs of patients worldwide.
“Under the supervision of Novartis mentors, I will be further investigating the response to sulphonylurea therapy in the European population which would allow me to compare the findings with the Malaysian subjects. The outcome of this research is hoped to help in the optimisation of Type 2 Diabetes management in Malaysia,” said Navin.
Sulphonylurea is a medicine given to Type 2 Diabetes patients and it helps to increase the production of insulin from their pancreas, which would then bring down the glucose levels in the blood.
As a clinical pharmacist, Navin was actively involved in the field of diabetes and was the pioneer who started the Diabetes Medication Therapy Adherence Clinic (DMTAC) service in Hospital Kuala Lumpur (HKL) in 2009. The clinic helps Type 2 Diabetes patients attain optimum medication adherence and glycemic target.
He was awarded the Young Investigator Award 2009 by the National Diabetes Institute (NADI)for his research work on DMTAC.
Navin’s PhD project is aimed to identify the clinical and genetic predictors for sulphonylurea drug response in the Malaysian Type 2 Diabetes population.
“My research interest is driven by the fact that the percentage of patients who achieve the glycemic targets are relatively low despite the wide access to drugs and diabetes care in Malaysia,” he explained.
Navin has completed part of the project at the New York University School of Medicine’s Diabetes Research Program in New York,USA in 2015.
He has also published a review article entitled “Genetic markers predicting sulphonylurea treatment outcomes in type 2 diabetes patients: current evidence and challenges for clinical implementation” in The Pharmacogenomics Journal this year.
Navin is doing his PhD under the supervision of Dr Hasniza Zaman Huri from UM’s Department of Pharmacy and Associate Prof Dr Shireene Ratna D B Vethakkan from the Department of Medicine.
He obtained both his Bachelor of Pharmacy (Honours) and Master of Clinical Pharmacy (MClinPharm) from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM).
He is a registered pharmacist with the Pharmacy Board of Malaysia and practiced as a clinical pharmacist in HKL prior to joining UM to pursue his PhD under the scholarship from Ministry of Health, Malaysia.
