Padma Shri for city doctor, prof

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 25

Two eminent city professors have been honoured with the prestigious Padma Shri award, announced in Delhi this evening.

Prof Harkishan Singh, Professor Emeritus at the PU, and Prof Mukut Minz, a former PGI transplant surgeon, have done the city proud by making it to the list of awardees for the prestigious award this year.

Prof Harkishan Singh is a well-known pharmaceutical academic, prominent medicinal chemist and renowned science historian.

Prof Mukut Minz is an eminent transplant surgeon. He is credited with setting up a new Department of Renal Transplant Surgery at the PGI and performing over 3,300 kidney transplants, among other achievements.

Talking to Chandigarh Tribune, 89-year-old Prof Harkishan Singh said, “I am pleased to receive this honour, but I was not working for awards. It is my passion to research and invent something fruitful for society.” He was flooded with calls soon after the announcement was made.

Interestingly, Professor Harkishan Singh could not find time to share the news with his siblings residing abroad till late evening. “I am still writing research papers and will continue till my health allows,” he said.

Prof Harkishan Singh said he was yet to decide whether he would go personally to collect the award when the date and time are decided and communicated to him by the government.

Prof Harkishan Singh is a renowned personality in the pharmacy industry not because of his books on research but for his rarest accomplishments, including the discovery of a clinically useful drug, Chandonium Iodide (HS-310), which was later named by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as Candocuronium Iodide. Candocuronium is the only drug discovered by any Indian University till date.

Over 350 publications, 18 books and 14 patents are testimony to the outcome of his work. He mentored over 50 doctoral and master theses too.

The second professor to be honoured with Padma Shri for his contribution to the field of medicine, Prof Mukut Minz, said he was overwhelmed to have received the honour. “It is a great humbling experience. I’m very happy and at the same time, satisfied too. It feels great when one’s work is recognised and that too, with a Padma Shri, which is such a prestigious award,” he said giving credit to the PGI for providing him an apt platform, which became the foundation of his glorious career.

Professor Minz, formerly Professor and Head of the Department of Renal Transplant Surgery at the PGI, Chandigarh, joined the PGI in 1980 and has over 30 years of experience in transplant surgery.

He was elevated to the post of Senior Professor in 2008 and became a member of the Governing Body of the PGI in 2015. He received advanced training in cadaver organ retrieval and transplantation at various centres/universities of Oslo, Norway; Gothenburg, Sweden; Heidelberg, Germany; Munich, Germany; and Minnesota, Minneapolis-USA.

Dr Minz successfully established a combined kidney-pancreas transplant programme for Type 1 diabetics with kidney failure at the PGI. He recently led the medical team at AIIMS, New Delhi, that carried out the kidney transplant of Union External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.

He has trained over 30 transplant surgeons, many of whom are holding academic positions in India, the US, the UK and Australia and has been a visiting professor in various universities. He has been conferred several awards. Currently, he is Director, Renal and Pancreas Transplant Surgery, Fortis Hospital, Mohali.