In addition to his work in public health, Dr Dash served as Vice Chancellor of the Central University of Tamil Nadu and the Asian Institute of Public Health University, significantly contributing to education and research. Leading five national laboratories and two universities is no easy task, but his leadership and perseverance made it possible. This book provides his candid reflections on the challenges he faced in higher education and research in India. His insights and experiences navigating these obstacles make it an essential read for anyone interested in the field.
---Dr. Poonam Khetrapal Singh, First Indian elected Regional Director (2014 -2023), World Health Organisation (South East Asia Region)
Professor Aditya P Dash gives his personal, frank, perspective on every institution and area he has experienced in his long and chequered career. This memoir opens a window to health sciences research in areas such as in malaria as well as the challenges in leading major institutions.
---Dr K. VijayRaghavan, FRS, Ex- Principal Scientific Adviser to Government of India, Former Secretary, Department of Biotechnology, Government of India
Dr A. P. Dash comes from a very distinguished with a strong religious background and his wife is a daughter of the first DG, Police of Odisha. He has distinguished himself in the area of Vector Borne Diseases and Public Health which is a very heady mix, where basic science, applied science as well as public health mixes itself for a common public good. His work has been cited in the first 10 distinguished publications in Biomedical sciences. His work has a huge impact on control of Malaria in India and South East Asia. He started his career in the Regional Medical Research Centre (ICMR), Bhubaneshwar and then moved to develop Institute of Life Sciences (ILS), Bhubaneshwar and saw its transition from a State funded organisation to a Government of India, DBT institute. Today ILS stands proud as one of the most distinguished institutes under DBT umbrella.
---Professor Nirmal Kumar Ganguly, M.B.B.S., M.D., FRCP (London), Fellow, Imperial College (London), FAMS, FNA (Ind. Med.), FNASc, FTWAS (Italy), FIACS (Canada), FIMSA
Former Director General - Indian Council of Medical Research, Ex- President, JIPMER, Pondicherry, (PADMABHUSAN AWARDEE)
AP's memoir "A Dash of Hope" will serve as a reminder of ongoing challenges in the areas of NTDs and VBDs that affect hundreds of millions of people globally. It also demonstrates that nothing is impossible if you work hard with passion and dedication. I have no doubt that AP's exceptional contributions summarized in the memoir will continue to inspire future generation of scientists in India.
---Nirbhay Kumar, PhD, FAAAS, FAAM, FASTMH, Professor of Global Health, George Washington University, Washington DC, USA
(Former Professor and Chair of Tropical Medicine, and Director of Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases Research Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA)
(Former Professor of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, and Deputy Director of Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA)
I am thrilled that Prof. Dash has written his autobiography so that others may be inspired, uplifted, and encouraged from a life well lived. His achievements and accomplishments are truly remarkable and thought-provoking, and it has been my great fortune to know him.
---Professor Jane M. Carlton, Director, Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute, Founding Director, NIH International Centre of Excellence for Malaria in India, Former Director, Centre for Genomics & Systems Biology, New York University
Aditya Prasad Dash, a distinguished Indian biologist from the state of Odisha, India; is renowned for his expertise in vector-borne and neglected tropical diseases, particularly those affecting marginalized communities. According to Vidwan, the national network of researchers and experts, Prof. Dash has authored over 320 publications.His illustrious career spanned nearly five decades (1974-2023), during which he served as a researcher and scientist in six national research organizations and the World Health Organization. He also held leadership roles as Vice Chancellor at two universities, including a central university, and served as Director at five national research institutes in India.According to Elsevier's Scopus database, Prof. Dash was ranked the top Indian scientist in Immunology and Microbiology, and seventh in Medicine for the period 2002-2014, based on multiple evaluation parameters (DST, International Comparative Research Base, December 2015). As noted in the Indian Council of Medical Research's (ICMR) centenary celebration report, one of his papers was recognized as the second most cited publication in 100 years of malaria research in India.Further recognition of his scientific contributions includes a 2016 bibliometric study published in Collection Building (Vol. 33), which identified him as the most prolific Indian author on malaria research from 2003 to 2012. A 2019 scientometric study in the KELPRO Bulletin (Vol. 23) ranked him among the top three most productive Indian authors in parasitology between 2007 and 2016.In 2022, Prof. Dash was honoured with the Padma Shri in the field of Science and Engineering and was recognized as a "Distinguished Biologist" of India. In recent years, he has also been consistently listed among the World's Top 2% Scientists, as compiled by Stanford University and Elsevier.
