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Description:

Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, formerly known as Willingdon Hospital and nursing home, was established by the British Government in the year 1933 for their staff and had only 54 beds. In 1954, its control was transferred to the Central Government of Independent India. The hospital has grown over the years and is currently having approximately 1500 beds, spread over in 37 acres of land. Hospital has various broad speciality and super-speciality departments along with round the clock emergency services. It caters to the population of New Delhi and Central District, apart from patients from other areas and even from outside Delhi.

In the year 2019, hospital provided services to about 18 lakhs patients as OPD cases, admitted about 77000 patients in Indoor and about 3.4 lakh patients were attended in the Emergency. A dedicated Super Specialty Block and Oncology services are also in the pipeline and initial work in this direction is underway.  It is also geared up to setup a comprehensive “Transplant Immunology and Molecular Pathology Lab” which will pave the way to attaining excellence in comprehensive patient care, teaching and research.

The Department of Psychiatry at RML was started in the year 1943 with outdoor services only.  At present, department has 72 beds for indoor services. The department has been awarded Centre of Excellence in Mental Health under scheme A of National Mental Health Program. In the year 2019, department of psychiatry has provided services to approximately 70,000 OPD patients and 1800 indoor patients.

 

The Department has been carrying out pioneering international collaborative research in genetics of major mental disorders, pharmacogenetics, rehabilitation and training in psychiatric genetic research since early 90s. Research work has been published in national and international Journals.

 

Research Projects (Related to genetics):

  1. Tri-National Training Program in Psychiatric Genetics. Funded by Fogarty International Centre, National Institutes of Health, USA. March 2010-15.
  2. Clinical and genetic profile of children with cardiomyopathies attending a tertiary care hospital of North India and their long-term perspective follow up.
  3. Identification of putative novel genes in strabismus using contemporary approaches
  4. Utility of GeneXpert for early diagnosis of tuberculosis in children.
  5. Effect of Parental Psycho Education, Ethics of Research Participation and Array Comparative Genomic Hybridization in Subjects with Mental Retardation (MR) and/or Autism.
  6. Advanced In Country Research Award under Training Program for Psychiatric Genetics in India (PI) Title: An Exploratory Risk stratification, cognitive evaluation and locus of control in relatives of schizophrenia subjects.
InvestigatorProfessionContact Information
Dr. Lokesh Singh Shekhawat, M.D.Associate Professor
Department of Psychiatry
Centre for Excellence in Mental Health
ABVIMS, Dr R.M.L. Hospital, Delhi
drlokesh4@gmail.com
Dr. Lokesh Kumar Sharma, MDProfessor,
Department of Biochemistry
PGIMER-Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital
New Delhi-01, India
+91-11-23404440, 23404890
+91-9910457961

Research

Previous/ Ongoing Research Collaborations

c-VEDA  (Consortium on Vulnerability to Externalizing Disorders & Addictions)

  • An ICMR - MRC grant and its main papers
  • Comprises of  >14.000 participants aged 0-25 years who have been genotyped
  • Participants include those with high risk for substance misuse and population-based individuals from different social and environmental (rural and urban) backgrounds.

Collaborating Sites:

  • NIMHANS Bangalore,
  • PGIMER, Chandigarh; 
  • RIMH, Tezpur,
  • Mysore

ADBS (Accelerator Program for Discovery in Brain Disorders using Stem Cells

  • Funded by Department of Biotechnology, Government of India
  • Study of multiplex families with severe mental illnesses
  • Whole exome sequencing for 300 multiplex-affected families and population controls

Publications

Wray et al. (2018) in Nature GeneticsGenome-wide association analyses identify 44 risk variants and refine the genetic architecture of major depression. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-018-0090-3

 

Howard et al. (2019) in Nature NeuroscienceGenome-wide meta-analysis of depression identifies 102 independent variants and highlights the importance of the prefrontal brain regions. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-018-0326-7

Funders