Editorial biography · No. 74
Prof. Challa Sundaram
Built neuropathology services in Andhra Pradesh, and now presides over the national society
- Full name
- Sundaram Challa, MD, FAMS, FICP, FRCPath
- Institution
- Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad
- Specialty
- Neuropathology · Neuro-oncology · Neuroinfections · Neuromuscular disease
- Training and role
- MD Pathology, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam · neuropathology training, Southern General Hospital, Glasgow · Dean, Senior Professor and Head of Pathology, NIMS Hyderabad
Sundaram Challa established neuropathology services in Andhra Pradesh — not joined them, established them. She retired as Dean, Senior Professor and Head of the Department of Pathology at Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences in Hyderabad, and is President of the Neuropathology Society of India.
She took her MD in pathology at Andhra University in Visakhapatnam and trained in neuropathology at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow, then returned to build a diagnostic service covering neuro-oncology, neuroinfections and neuromuscular disease from a base where none had existed.
Her published work includes a large series on mitochondrial myopathies, with particular attention to chronic progressive external ophthalmoplegia on muscle biopsy and genetics, alongside proteomic studies in human gliomas and work on central nervous system fungal infections.
CNS fungal infection is another of the diagnoses that separates Indian neuropathology from the Western literature: it is comparatively common, frequently missed, and rapidly fatal when it is. Building the capacity to recognise it in a state that previously had to send material elsewhere is the substance of what she did.