ACT Team

Vishal Barbate is a young businessman of Nagpur. He lost his 3-year-old son, Arya to a fatal disease after a prolonged battle on 22 January 2009. Converting this devastating blow into a mission to help others, he used his personal experience and channelled it into Arya Charitable Trust, which is a lasting tribute to the courage of his son. He founded the organisation out of deep empathy for parents and families of children unlucky enough to be afflicted with serious diseases. The Trust is his humble attempt to extend as much help and support to them as possible as they struggle to find resources and treatments for their sick children. Vishal Barbate is the director of the Barbate Group of companies in Nagpur.

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A renowned paediatrician of Nagpur, Dr. Satish Deopujari has been actively associated with a number of altruistic initiatives. An expert in paediatric intensive care, he was instrumental in organising the country’s first National Paediatric Intensive Care conference in Nagpur in the late 1990s and was its founder and chairman. Passionate about teaching, he has been freely imparting knowledge to students. He has also been an active member of a US-based global organisation named Physicians for Peace, which is dedicated to transforming lives by training, supporting and empowering healthcare professionals working with the world’s underserved populations.

Together, Vishal Barbate and Dr. Satish Deopujari organised a group of like-minded people, including a team of doctors, an art director, volunteers and workers to carry out ACT’s campaign of awareness. To reach their message across to villagers, they chose the medium of Street Plays, for which the village children themselves were selected as actors and who were trained by the art director.

Now, for its unique campaign about children’s metabolic and genetic disorders, two prominent specialists have joined the ACT’s team:

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Dr. Anil B. Jalan passed MD in paediatrics from Mumbai University in 1989. He developed interest in genetics and metabolic disorders while working in PRL of KEM hospital Mumbai during post-graduation and later received basic training in metabolic disorders at CDFD Hyderabad. Then, Dr. Jalan attended specialized training programmes in many aspects of medical genetics and Inborn Errors of Metabolism in various European universities: University of Vienna - AKH ( Austria ), University of Graz - LKH ( Austria ), Neurometabolic Centre of Nijmegen ( Holland ), BIRD Institute (Italy ), AMC ( Amsterdam ) etc.

His expertise is in clinical and laboratory aspects of Newborn Screening, Critically ill newborns, Mitochondriopathies, Peroxisomal Disorders, Lysosomal Storage Disorders, CDG syndromes, Neruo-Transmitter Metabolism defects, Paediatric Movement disorders, Various Neurometabolic disorders and Molecular diagnosis of various genetic disorders. Over a period of 12 years, till December 2012, he has diagnosed and managed more than 10,000 children with various metabolic, genetic and neurological disorders. He has many publications to his credit and has presented papers in various national and international conferences.

On 15th December 1998, Dr. Anil B. Jalan and his colleagues founded NIRMAN - Navi Mumbai Institute of Research (www.metabolicerror.com) with a specific aim of studying and treating genetic and metabolic aspects of many neurological disorders in paediatric age group.

He is a member of SSIEM (Society for Study in Inborn Errors of Metabolism) - Europe, SIMD (Society for Inborn Metabolic Defects (USA) and an adviser to E-IMD registry (European Inborn Errors of Metabolic Defect - Registry). He has written 3 books: 2 in Marathi titled "Nivdung" for parents of children with mental handicap and one for Neonatologists titled "Inborn Errors of Metabolism in Critically ill Newborn."

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Dr. D. K. Chopade completed his MBBS and MS from Government Medical College, Nagpur. He practices as Medical Geneticist and is the director of Genetic Health & Research Center at Nasik (www.geneticsindia.com). He has been providing genetic health assessment, genetic tests, chromosomal tests, genetic counseling, prenatal testing for genetic disorders, counseling for management of genetic disorders. His early struggles in life inspired him to set up “Down’s Syndrome Care Association” (DSCA) in 2006 (.dscaindia.org). Through DSCA, Dr. Chopade is creating Genetic Health Awareness in general public and doctors’ community in North Maharashtra, Marathwada and Vidarbha. It is essentially creating public awareness about Down’s syndrome condition and getting people involved in the various Down’s syndrome activities. Every year DSCA organizes World Down’s Syndrome Days on 21st March, providing free detail check up to the DS kids from all the medical specialists like geneticist, physician, ENT, ophthalmologist, physiotherapist, speech therapist, behavioural therapist, paediatricians, cardiologist. Dr Chopade is also involved with Medical Education and Research Foundation (www.anatomyindia.org), a small scale industry that creates the best quality medical education aids for medical students. Dr. Chopade has been working with 600 DS children and their families whom he counsels regularly. For his selfless work with DS children and their families, he was honoured with Bajaj Discover-Dr. Batra’s Positive Health Award 2010 at a function at Tata Theatre in Mumbai. Dr. Chopade has also written a book ‘Agantuk 21” in Marathi for the parents of DS children.