Hyderabad-based gastroenterologist D. Nageshwar Reddy receiving the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian award, from President Droupadi Murmu at a ceremony held at Rashtrapati Bhavan on April 28, 2025.
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Hyderabad-based gastroenterologist and entrepreneur D. Nageshwar Reddy was conferred the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian award, by President Droupadi Murmu at a ceremony held at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on Monday. The award recognises his contributions in the field of medicine.

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Dr. Reddy, who serves as the chairman of the Asian Institute of Gastroenterology (AIG) in Hyderabad, is among seven persons to receive the Padma Vibhushan this year. The list of awardees was announced earlier in January.

He was conferred the Padma Shri in 2002 and the Padma Bhushan in 2016. “Dr. Nageshwar Reddy is a globally renowned gastroenterologist, who revolutionised the field of therapeutic endoscopy, transforming thousands of lives across the globe. He played a huge role in making India a hub for world-class Gl Endoscopy services. He has helped in bridging rural-urban healthcare divide, deploying India’s first mobile endoscopy units and screening programs that bring life-saving diagnostics to underserved communities,” said the official handle of the President of India on Monday evening.

Two doses of recombinant zoster vaccine (RZV Shingrix) are recommended by the CDC for those aged over 50. Photograph used for representational purposes only
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What is shingles? 

Shingles, also known as herpes zoster, is caused by the varicella-zoster virus responsible for chickenpox. Varicella-zoster (VZV) is among the group of viruses called the herpes viruses, according to information on the Mayo Clinic’s website. The virus that causes chickenpox and shingles however, are not the same as the one that cause cold sores or genital herpes, a sexually transmitted infection. The Centres for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention says one in every three people in the United States of America will have shingles in their lifetime.  

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Who is at risk for shingles? 

A person who has had chickenpox will harbour the virus for life. The virus remains inactive for years and sometimes is reactivated and travels along the nervous system when the immune system weakens. Typically, people over the age of 50, pregnant women, newborns and older persons are at risk. People who are under radiation or chemotherapy for cancer will have a lowered immune system also putting them at risk. Those who are on immunosuppressants following transplantation or on steroids for a long time are also at higher risk.  

Shingles can appear as a single stripe of blisters anywhere on the body, including the face. The infection can spread to a person who has never had chickenpox earlier and cause chickenpox in them.  

What are the symptoms? 

The infection is not life-threatening, but it can be extremely painful. The symptoms include pain, a burning and tingling sensation and itching followed by red rashes. The rashes develop into blisters filled with fluid which break, and scabs form. Shingles is contagious until the blisters break. Doctors advise people with shingles to isolate themselves and to take plenty of rest. The clothes and towels they use should be washed separately.  

A person with shingles may have fever, headache, fatigue and experience sensitivity to light. If the rashes appear near the eye, it is important to see the doctor and seek treatment to avoid permanent damage to the eye.  

To prevent spreading the infection, the CDC advises covering the rash. Avoid scratching it and wash hands often for 20 seconds at a time, besides practicing self-isolation. The pain and the rash will settle in three to five weeks and the blisters do not leave scars. 

What are the complications shingles could cause? 

The CDC says shingles can sometime lead to serious complications such as long-term nerve pain and loss of sight. In some people, the pain may persist even after the blisters have cleared. This condition is called postherpetic neuralgia. This could be due to pain signals being sent from the skin to the brain by damaged nerve fibers, according to Mayo Clinic. If shingles occur in or around the eye, known as ophthalmic shingles, it can cause painful eye infections, resulting in loss of sight. Some people could also experience neurological problems such as encephalitis (inflammation in the brain), facial paralysis or have hearing and balance issues. When the blisters are not treated properly, they could lead to bacterial infections.  

What are the treatment modalities? 

People at risk could get vaccinated. Two doses of recombinant zoster vaccine (RZV Shingrix) are recommended by the CDC for those aged over 50. The vaccination would reduce the virulence of the infection even if it were to occur. Vaccination is recommended for anyone over 19 years with a weakened immune system. According to the National Institute on Ageing the shingles vaccine is more than 90% effective at preventing the disease. 

The team used tiny sensors implanted on the participant’s brain to read the intent to move, allowing them to track and analyse brain activity despite the participant being unable to physically move.
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Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have achieved a significant breakthrough in assistive technology for individuals with paralysis. The lead author of a scientific paper on the project, an Indian who grew up in Chennai, Nikhilesh Natraj, says they have developed a brain-computer interface (BCI) that allows a paralysed man to control a robotic arm simply by imagining the movements he wishes to execute.

Dr. Natraj is a neuroscientist and neural engineer at the Weill Institute for Neurosciences, UCSF. “Here, our team has developed a framework that allows a paralysed man to control a robotic arm for 7 months straight using just his thoughts alone, with minimal calibration,” he says. The results of this study were published in a recent volume of the peer-reviewed journal Cell.

Dr. Natraj and his team developed a framework that enabled a paralysed individual to control a robotic arm using only his thoughts for 7 months, with minimal calibration, showcasing the potential of BCIs for long-term, stable use.
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Special Arrangement

Developing stability in Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs)

To start with, the team had to understand the neural patterns behind movement. The key was discovering how activity shifts in the brain day to day as a study participant repeatedly imagined making specific movements. Once a machine learning/AI algorithm was programmed to account for those shifts, it worked for months at a time.

Karunesh Ganguly, professor of neurology and a member of the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences who studied how patterns of brain activity in animals represent specific movements, saw that these patterns changed day-to-day. If one assumed that the same thing was happening in humans, these changes would explain why the participants’ BCIs became unstable and quickly lost the ability to recognise movement patterns. The team worked with an individual who had been paralysed by a stroke and could not speak or move, a note on the varsity website stated.

The study participant had tiny sensors implanted on the surface of his brain that could pick up brain activity when he imagined moving. The sensors do not send pulses to the brain, but only read out the intent to move from the movement regions of the brain, Dr. Natraj explains.

AI and signal processing

To see whether and how his brain patterns changed over time, the participant was asked to imagine moving different parts of his body. Although he couldn’t actually move, the participant’s brain could still produce the signals for a movement when he imagined himself doing it. The BCI recorded the brain’s representations of these movements through the sensors.

Analysing the patterns in the high-dimensional sensor data, the team found that while the structure of movement representations stayed the same, their locations in the high-dimensional data shifted slightly from day to day. By tracking these shifts and predicting how it would evolve, the team was able to overcome instability in BCI systems and developed an end-to-end signal processing and AI framework.

From imagined movements to real-world actions

The participant was then tasked with imagining himself making simple movements with his fingers, hands or thumbs while the sensors recorded his brain activity to train the AI. The read out signals were then decoded to actuate a robotic arm. Initially, he practiced on a virtual robot arm that gave him crucial feedback on the accuracy of his visualisations, helping him refine his direction and control.

Eventually, the participant managed to control a real-world robotic arm executing the action. He could perform tasks such as picking up and manipulating blocks, turning them, and relocating them. He even managed to open a cabinet, retrieve a cup, and hold it under a water dispenser—simple tasks but those that can be life-changing for those living with paralysis.

Having established that it can be done is the first stage, a lot more work needs to be put into refining the technique and for it to be deployed among people who have paralysis, Dr. Natraj says. Especially, the system should be able to work fluidly in complex scenarios with many distractions, such as when going to a crowded grocery store, he adds.