Sharad Lakhanpal, MBBS, MD, Receives India’s Highest Honor for Overseas Indians
In early January, Sharad Lakhanpal, MBBS, MD, MACR, FACP, a rheumatologist at Rheumatology Associates in Dallas and past president of the ACR, was one of only three Indian-Americans to receive the 2025 Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award (PBSA). The award is conferred every two years to non-resident Indians in recognition of their outstanding achievements both in India and abroad. PBSA recipients are selected by a jury-cum-awards committee chaired by the vice president of India, and are from a wide variety of disciplines worldwide.
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Dr. Lakhanpal was also one of only two physician recipients. He traveled to the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas Convention, held Jan. 8–10 in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India, to accept the honor. Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi spoke at the convention, and on Jan. 10, President Smt. Droupadi Murmu presented the awards.
The Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award was an enormous honor, he says. “It’s a great feeling, when you get called back home and they recognize your excellence of achievements in your field.”
Louise Vetter Became President & CEO of Lupus Foundation of America in 2024
Louise Vetter, a longtime professional in the nonprofit healthcare field, took the helm as president and CEO of the Lupus Foundation of America (LFA) in July 2024. TR spoke with her this past fall. She is passionate about increasing patients’ access to care because she has learned through experience “what it means to have to advocate for yourself—and the power of transformative therapies.” She grew up with severe, chronically debilitating asthma, a condition she continues to manage daily. Twenty-five years ago, after a successful career in healthcare public relations, she wanted to transition to mission-based nonprofit work. Given her own healthcare history, the American Lung Association became “in every way the perfect fit.” Her decade with ALA launched her career in nonprofit health.
Ms. Vetter then moved to the Huntington’s Disease Society of America (HDSA), serving as its president and CEO for 15 years. The HDSA, she notes, shares some commonalities with the LFA. Both are focused on complex diseases. Under her leadership, the organization built a robust program of research, clinical support and professional education resources. “The needs for improved diagnosis and comprehensive care resonate in the lupus community much like the way they did with HD families,” she says.
As she has become more knowledgeable about the multisystem complexities of lupus, Ms. Vetter has come to appreciate the challenges and unpredictability of its course. In addition, due to the prevalence of lupus in women of color and those who are underserved, LFA is well poised to make a difference in multiple challenging areas. “There is nothing one-size-fits-all about lupus—from how it presents to how it’s treated, to how people access care,” she notes. “The LFA’s challenge is to really look into how we bring resources forward to close the gap in accessing care, especially in minority communities. We are a critical partner to make sure there is information, access and support that’s available in a culturally and community-sensitive way.”
Additionally, she says, “There’s definitely momentum in the field of lupus research right now—which is inspiring. I hope the community feels that momentum and that hope, so we can accelerate the development of new therapies and improve the quality of life for people with lupus as quickly as possible.”
Christopher Goodnow, PhD, & David Nemazee, PhD, Awarded Crafoord Prize in Polyarthritis 2025
Dr. Goodnow
In early May, Christopher Goodnow, PhD, the Bill and Patricia Ritchie Foundation Chair, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Darlinghurst, NSW, Australia, and David Nemazee, PhD, professor in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology, Scripps Research, La Jolla, Calif., were presented the Crafoord Prize in Polyarthritis 2025 by H.M. King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden. The prize is awarded in partnership between the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Crafoord Foundation in Lund, Sweden, and spotlights a different scientific discipline every year. Drs. Goodnow and Nemazee will share the prize of 6 million Swedish kronor and are being recognized for their pioneering discoveries elucidating the mechanisms for B cell tolerance, which have paved the way for new treatments for patients with severe autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.
Dr. Nemazee
The two were working independently of each other at a time when many in the field were skeptical about the role of B cell tolerance in autoimmune disease. Other pioneers, such as the late Macfarlane Burnet, the late William O. Weigle, the late Norman R. Klinman and Gustav Nossal, had done experiments showing that B cell tolerance was involved in the autoimmune response. The problem of studying tolerance, notes Dr. Nemazee, was the low frequency of B cells specific for any particular antigen, which prevented researchers from obtaining a clear answer about its extent or the effect on autoimmunity. As transgenic mouse technology matured throughout the 1980s, both researchers reasoned that this technology, which entails inserting B cell receptor genes into the mouse germ line, might be a way to simplify the repertoire to obtain a clear answer about B cell tolerance.
Dr. Nemazee, then at the Basel Institute, notes that “it was the right time to take advantage of that technology.” He spent time learning to clone genes in collaboration with molecular biologists at the Basel Institute, and in collaboration with the embryologist Kurt Bürki, then at Sandoz, making anti-MHC specific B cell transgenic mice which, when compared with a control strain of mice, yielded the confirmation of B cell tolerance. Located in Australia and working with a Sydney-based researcher trained at one of the world’s preeminent laboratories, Dr. Goodnow employed the same technology, settling on a different protein antigen: hen egg lysosome, aiming to obtain a demonstration of B cell tolerance that was generalizable.
Further experiments built on the results of both, and at one point, says Dr. Goodnow, “it became apparent that the results from both of our experiments were two sides of the same coin.” The chair of the Crafoord Prize Committee, Olle Kämpe, noted that the work of Drs. Nemazee and Goodnow “has given us a new and detailed understanding of the mechanisms that normally prevent faulty B cells from attacking tissues in the body, and explaining why most of us are not affected by autoimmune disease.”
Dr. Nemazee initially gravitated to exploring the mechanisms of autoimmunity while a graduate student at Harvard University, Boston. His mentor was interested in studying the network hypothesis and Dr. Nemazee was assigned to making monoclonal antibodies. The current focus of his laboratory is on the innate immune response. The Crafoord Prize, coming at this stage of his career, he says, “is definitely the most significant that I have ever received. I’m very honored and grateful.”
Dr. Goodnow originally began his scientific career studying veterinary medicine and surgery, then shifted to immunochemistry and immunology, obtaining his doctorate at the University of Sydney. He also trained in DNA technology at Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif. Currently, he is leading Hope Research, an initiative of the Garvan Institute. For Dr. Goodnow, being notified of the Crafoord Prize “was the most amazing phone call of my life! And I’m really thrilled that the topic is getting its day in the sun.”
Gretchen Henkel is a health and medical journalist based in California.
