CHANDIGARH, 11.10.26-The transplant team at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, won major honours at ISOT 2026, the 36th Annual Conference of the Indian Society of Organ Transplantation, being held from 9-11 October 2026 at HITEX, Hyderabad.

Smt. Raksha Nikhil Khadse, Union Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports, presented the awards at the inaugural session.

Dr. Devprakash Choudhary, Assistant Professor in the Department of Renal Transplant Surgery, received the TANKER Young Investigator Award 2026 for his pioneering work in normothermic machine perfusion in India, enabling the use of donor kidneys that would otherwise have been discarded. He dedicated the award to his guru, Dr. Ashish Sharma, for his constant inspiration and support.

The team also received four ISOT 2026 Mentor-Mentee Awards. Prof. Smita Pattanaik and Ritika Panwar, from the Department of Pharmacology, were recognized for research on tacrolimus and personalized immunosuppression in kidney transplant recipients.

Three awards went to the Department of Renal Transplant Surgery:

Prof. Deepesh Kenwar and Dr. Kapil Gothwal, for assessing the safety of elderly living kidney donors and outcomes in their recipients.

Dr. Sarbpreet Singh and Dr. Belmin Winston, for using continuous glucose monitoring to predict diabetes after transplantation.

Dr. Devprakash Choudhary and Dr. Rohan Rao, for the impact of living donor surgery and its association with transplant outcomes.

The programme listed Telangana Chief Minister Shri A. Revanth Reddy as Chief Guest, State Health Minister Shri C. Damodar Rajanarasimha and Smt. Khadse as Guests of Honour, and Dr. Anil Kumar, Director of the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO), as Special Guest.