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Newsmakers of the Week JULY 18, 2025 | The Indian Eye 32

Lupus Prize Honors

Dr. Deepak Rao’s

Breakthrough Research

BOSTON, MA
he Lupus Research Alliance
has awarded the 2025 Lupus
TInsight Prize to Dr. Deepak
Rao of Brigham and Women’s Hos-
pital and Harvard Medical School.
His groundbreaking work, published
in Nature, uncovered a key immune
imbalance driving lupus, offering a
promising target for new treatments.
Dr. Rao’s study revealed that lu-
Chillara outlined a broad outreach strategy that includes forming sub-co- pus patients have too many B-helper
alitions representing Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Nepali, and Sri Lankan T cells and too few Th22 cells, cre-
Americans. Within the Indian American Coalition, language-based wings— ating unchecked inflammation. He
Gujarati, Tamil, Punjabi, Hindi, and Telugu—will ensure cultural engagement. and collaborator Dr. Jaehyuk Choi
Plans include digital outreach, temple events, youth and women’s engage- traced this to disrupted AHR-JUN
ment, and fundraising drives. The coalition aims to energize South Asian par- signaling, which normally regulates immune balance. Interferon-driven in-
ticipation in state politics and shape the 2025 election narrative. flammation impairs this pathway in lupus patients.
“This prize will help us develop strategies to suppress harmful immune
Richard Gere Celebrates Dalai responses while preserving protective ones,” said Dr. Rao at the FOCIS 2025
meeting in Boston.
The $100,000 award recognizes recent discoveries with potential to trans-
Lama’s 90th Birthday form lupus treatment. LRA Chief Scientific Officer Teodora Staeva hailed
Rao’s work as a major advance in understanding autoimmune dysfunction.

NASA’s Anil Menon Assigned

to First Space Mission

WASHINGTON, DC
ASA astronaut Anil Menon
will launch on his first mission
Nto the International Space
Station in June 2026 aboard the
Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft. He will serve
as a flight engineer for Expedition 75
alongside Russian cosmonauts Pyotr
Dubrov and Anna Kikina.
Menon, selected as a NASA astro-
naut in 2021, holds degrees from Har-
vard and Stanford and is also a Space
DHARAMSHALA (INDIA)
Force colonel and emergency physi-
cian. He previously served as SpaceX’s
ollywood actor and longtime Buddhist practitioner Richard Gere first flight surgeon and helped launch
joined the 90th birthday celebrations of the 14th Dalai Lama, praising
Hhim as a global icon of selflessness and compassion. the Crew Dragon mission Demo-2.
Born to Indian and Ukrainian parents in Minneapolis, Menon will spend
Speaking at the event in Dharamshala, Gere said, “We have never seen a
human being like him… His Holiness belongs to the world and the universe.” eight months on the ISS conducting research that prepares for deep-space
missions under NASA’s Artemis program.
He compared the Dalai Lama’s teachings to those of Jesus Christ, highlight- He continues to practice emergency medicine and train medical resi-
ing their shared emphasis on compassion. dents. This mission marks a significant milestone in Menon’s multi-faceted
The Dalai Lama, born Lhamo Dhondup in 1935, was recognized as the
reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama at age two. He assumed political lead- career bridging medicine, engineering, and space exploration.
ership of Tibet in 1950 but fled to India in 1959 following China’s invasion.
Now based in India, the spiritual leader continues to advocate peace and To read more about Indian diaspora and Global Indians, log on to and follow
non-violence. His birthday was marked by global celebrations and renewed our website www.TheIndianEYE.com
calls for the continuation of his spiritual legacy.

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