Editorial

The National Academy of Medical Sciences (India) completed its 50 glorious years in 2011. Established as a unique institution which fosters and utilizes academic excellence as its resource to meet medical and social goals, the Academy has been recognised by the Government of India as a Nodal Agency for Continuing Education for Medical and Allied Health Professionals and is advising the Government of India in matters of National Health Policy and Planning.

The Academy encourages and sponsors nation-wide CME programmes, Symposia, Workshops and Conferences. Over the years the Academy has recognized the outstanding achievements made by the Indian scientists in the field of medicine and allied sciences and conferred Fellowship as well as Membership to the selected persons through a structured peer reviewed process and voting by all the Fellows.

One of the key role of Academy is dissemination of peer reviewed scientific material contributed by biomedical scientists. Efforts of our esteemed fellows have kept the literary and scientific contents of the Journal “Annals of the National Academy of Medical Sciences (India)” to the highest level. With unrelenting efforts of our dynamic community we have been able to maintain the continuity of the publication also. The Academy is trying to get the Annals indexed in PubMed and are leaving no stone unturned to get the job done. The major criteria for the same are the quality of articles being submitted and published, peer-review process, and regularity of publication. In its endeavour to do so, we are changing the size of the journal at par with our global counterparts. The Annals Vol 53, first issue is in your hands with improved size. Secondly, our Annals is now online also at annals-nams.in and all articles are available with open access. Not only the site provides access to reading, one can also submit their research and other contribution online without any charges. Thirdly, we have already started our indexing with various agencies to get wider coverage of our contents. The Annals is indexed with Index Medicus of South-East Asia region (IMSEAR) of WHO and is extracted by Directory of Open Access Journal (DOAJ), Google Scholar, Harvard Database, BASE, Citefactor and other indexing agencies.

The family of our Academy has grown enormously in size in numbers, variety and multidisciplinary talent. We have more than 900 Fellows and 6300 members as of December 2016. Whenever we wish to share our scientific achievements, we tend to become very selective in choosing the journal and our criteria are restricted on indexing status, suitability for the journal and type of research work focused on particular speciality and journal impact factor. With the support given by all fellows and members, Annals is now getting manuscripts which are aligned with our mandate to uplift the status of public health, medical education with emphasis on competency and skill development, and innovations in healthcare. One of the unique quality of Annals is its diversity and assortment rarely seen in speciality journals. The current issue exemplify this diversity. Readers gets an opportunity to peep into domain of other scientists who are doing path breaking work in their areas of expertise.

Many epigenetic and genetic factors may determine diabetic patients' susceptibility to renal disease development. Diabetic Nephropathy (DN) is a result of multifactorial mechanisms and may ultimately lead to Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). Dr OP Kalra has shared his work on "Genetic Basis of Diabetic Nephropathy" based on his extensive experience in this issue of the Annals.

For a long time Medical Educationists in India are struggling to implement reforms in curriculum both for under-graduates and post-graduates education. Many radical changes have been implemented in curriculum in Western world and but are still being evaluated for their learning outcomes. No better time exists for medical faculty in India to just carry out smaller Quality Improvement (QI) changes in existing system and study the impact in existing settings where Indian system of education is still producing physician who are being recognized and appreciated for their skills globally as the world is closely watching the developments in medical education in India. Post-graduate students' self-assessment regarding their competencies and skills showed adequacy as far as Communication and health education is concerned but lacked confidence in epidemiology and occupational health. This was the conclusion drawn in a study by Kishore et al. Authors felt a need for reforms in existing curriculum.

Innovations do help mankind in preserving their health has been immensely proved by work by Dr. Gulati and Dr. Dash. Despite improvement in technology and advances in healthcare, we are still not able to achieve a single digit score in Infant Mortality Rate except in state of Kerala. To a large extent perinatal factors and genetic conditions are responsible among survivors having adverse developmental outcome and disability. The children need an early detection of neurodevelopmental conditions and early intervention coupled with augmentation of skills among the healthcare workers at grass root level. This can be achieved by developing pediatric sub-specialities with innovative approaches towards diagnosis, management and research. Autism was once a rare diagnosis. Observant paediatricians are now picking more cases from their busy practices coupled with the help of informed public. Innovative tools have been widely researched in India and are making life of the families having child suffering from Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) much easier. All credit goes to Indian biomedical scientists who selflessly get involved with these children and their families. Dr. Gulati from AIIMS Delhi has shared her dream of developing Pediatric Neurology and how the vision got realized through offbeat journey less travelled by others is being highlighted in her article “Neurodevelopmental disorders: The Journey, the dreams and their realization”. On the other hand Dr. Dash from BHU, Varanasi has described innovative applications of Nanomaterials. Graphene based biosensor can detect individuals with high risk for thrombosis while near-infrared laser-irradiated gold Nano rods can ablate pathologic thrombus in-situ. Academy provides a platform for biomedical scientists for sharing, networking and integrating all medical specialities since the collaboration is the buzzword for all round development of health of mankind.

Public awareness with the help of mass media, mobile technology and education has definitely brought down diseases related to infections, poverty and nutritional disorders to great extent if not completely. However, India is facing problems with non-communicable diseases and emerging infections due to changes in socio-environmental milieu and changing lifestyles. The lurking danger of cancer, metabolic disorders and silent diseases like hypertension and diabetes mellitus on one hand and continuing threats of infectious diseases on the other hand is creating heavy stress on our healthcare system. Unless we take our vision to a futuristic horizon and start harnessing technology coupled with clinical research we will be at great disadvantage in the healthcare we are going to provide. Neurorestoration in stroke patients using multimodality approaches incorporating stem cells, robotics and drugs do help patients regain their functional capabilities has been highlighted by Dr. Padma Srivastava. She has delved deeper into newer cell based therapies, appliances, drugs and devices which have worked advantageously both in experimental and clinical studies in stroke patients.

Editorial board hopes that this present issue will instil new life in our journey towards academic excellence in showcasing the admirable work of Indian biomedical scientists to our global community.