Professor Ponnusamy Saravanan

 

Professor Saravanan (Sara) is a Professor and Honorary Consultant Physician specializing in Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Metabolism at Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, and George Eliot Hospital in Nuneaton. After completing his specialty training in Bristol and Exeter, Sara joined the University of Warwick as an Associate Professor in 2007. In 2017, he became the first in his specialty at Warwick to be internally promoted to full Professor.

 

Prof. Saravanan divides his time equally between clinical practice and research. Over the past 17 years, his research has focused on understanding the mechanisms and ethnic variations in the 'programming' of obesity and cardiometabolic disorders, as well as precision medicine. He emphasizes the importance of the health (both physical and mental) of young women, particularly nutrition and Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM), to reduce the rising burden of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disorders. To address this, he has established early pregnancy cohorts globally, including the PRiDE study in the UK (n=4746), STRiDE in India (n=3070) and Kenya (n=4134), MAGIC in Malaysia (n=5200), and TaRGET in Thailand (n=4260), all funded by the Medical Research Council, UK. He has published over 135 peer-reviewed articles and has received numerous national and international awards.

 

In 2015, his team won the prestigious NHS Innovation Award for individualized diabetes management for South Asians in the UK. He has been instrumental in the rapid adoption of new therapies and technologies for diabetes at local, regional, and national levels. During the COVID-19 pandemic, his new UK screening guidelines for GDM, was widely adopted across the UK. He also co-led the BABYSTEPS trial, an innovative intervention combining face-to-face and remote support to improve physical activity among post-GDM women, in collaboration with the University of Leicester.

 

Prof. Saravanan serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the Royal College of Physicians' journal, Clinical Medicine. He led the Diabetes division for the NIHR Clinical Research Network in the West Midlands for seven years (now co-leads) and has created several initiatives, to name a few, ‘research scholars programme’ and ‘diabesity initiative’ to build academic capacity. He is the Founder-Director of the international Doctoral Training Programme, which focuses on building research capacity in low- and middle-income countries. He also reviews grants and serves on boards for funding bodies nationally and internationally.