Information
Membership Number: FCA3113
Membership Type: Fellowship
Division: Natural Sciences
Corresponding Email: narin.mehra@gmail.com
Homepage(s): https://nasi.org.in/fellows/mehra-narinder-kumar/
Present and Previous Positions
Honorary Emeritus Scientist, Indian Council of Medical Research (Mar 2019 till date)
Former Dean (Res), All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi (2012-14)
National Chair, Indian Council of Medical Research
Founder Head, Dept of Transplant Immunology & Immunogenetics, AIIMS (1993-2014)
Vice President (international affairs), Indian National Science Academy (2022-2024)
President, Indian Society of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics (since 1992)
Chair, Indian Marrow Donor Registry (IMDR)
Mentor and Advisor, SRL & Agilus Laboratories Ltd (Mar 2016 till date)
Chair, Scientific Advisory Board, EastOcyon Bio, India
Mentor & Advisor, Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhubaneshwar
Fields of Scholarship and Research Interests
Prof Narinder Mehra is the Former Dean, National chair and Sr Professor and Founder Head of the Department of Transplant Immunology and clinical immunogenetics of the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. After finishing graduation from the Govt Medical College, Amritsar, he Joined AIIMS in 1969 to do postgraduation and then PhD. He joined the AIIMS Faculty in 1979, rose to become Sr Professor and then the Dean.
As vice-president (international affairs) of the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), he played a key role for the Science 20 engagement group during the G20 Presidency of India. He is vastly experienced in policy, education promotion and strategic planning for science. He was the main resource for preparing the National Guidelines for Stem cell research and Therapy and Guidelines for Umbilical Cord Blood banking. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he published a white paper, “COVID-19: host immunity and vaccines” and took an active part in public education.
He is an internationally acclaimed expert in the area of Transplant Immunology and Clinical Immunogenetics, for which his singular efforts culminated in establishing this specialty for the first time in India, thus facilitating solid organ and hematopoietic stem cell transplants in the country. He chairs several committees of the ICMR, DBT, and CSIR and is the chair/member of scientific advisory committees of several institutes in India.
Prof Mehra has been the President of the Indian Immunology Society, councilor for the International Union of Immunological Societies, co-chair of the IUIS Gender equality committee and founder Secretary-General of the Federation of Immunological Societies of Asia-Oceania. He is a Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, National Academy of Sciences (Allahabad), National Academy of Medical Sciences, Member Honoris Causa of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and ‘Fellow’ of The World Academy of Sciences (FTWAS). He is also the Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP) of UK and of the Punjab Academy of Sciences (FPAS). Recently, the International Science Council elected him as their Fellow (FISC), a unique honor for him.
He has over 100 scientific awards and academic honors including the coveted S.S. Bhatnagar prize of the CSIR, Khwarizmi international award from the Iranian Research Organization on Science and Technology, Dr B.R. Ambedkar Prize of ICMR for excellence in medical research and Tata Innovation Fellowship of the DBT, Govt of India. The French President conferred on him the Chevalier of the National Order of Merit. He also received the highest award, Khwarizmi International Award from the Iranian Research Organization for Science and Technology. He was a member of the international jury for the Else Kroner Fresenius International Award in Immunology for selecting high impact joint research projects of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Israel Research Foundation.
He has published nearly 500 research papers and important books including one on ‘HLA System in Medicine and Biology’ and another highlighting the ‘impact of antibodies in solid organ transplantation’. He regularly writes columns for the leading newspapers on COVID-19 and viral host immunity.
Honors, Awards and Other Membership
Qualifications
(UG) Govt Medical College, Amritsar, India — 1966
MS (PG) All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi — 1971
PhD All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi — 1975
Fellowships and Memberships
FNASc, National Academy of Sciences, Allahabad, India — 1998
FNA, Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi — 2007
FTWAS, The World Academy of Sciences, Trieste, Italy — 2013
FAMS, National Academy of Medical Sciences, Allahabad — 2020
FISOT, Indian Society of Organ Transplantation — 2015
FRCP (Hon), Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, UK — 2023
FISC, Fellow of the International Science Council (France) — 2023
FPAS, Fellow of the Punjab Academy of Sciences — 2024
International Honors and Distinctions
Chevalier de L’Ordre National du Merite (France) — 2003
Khwarizmi International Award, Iranian Research Organization in Science — 2004
Member Honoris Causa, Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Hungary) — 2004
Honorary Life Member, Asia Pacific Histocompatibility & Immunogenetics Association — 2018
Major Academic Honors and Awards
1977: Anatomical Society of India - H.J. Mehta Gold Medal
1983: Shankuntala Devi Amir Chand Prize of Indian council of Medical Research
1983: ‘Young Associate' of the Indian Academy of Sciences
1983: Indian Rheumatism Association - IRA-Boots' Gold Medal
1984: Research Society for Study of Diabetes in India-Prof E. Moses Gold Medal
1986: INSA Research Fellow Award
1992: S.S. Bhatnagar Award of CSIR– highest award for science in India
1996: Ranbaxy Science Foundation Award
1995: Sher-I-Kashmir Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah Award
1996: Prof. G.S. Randhawa Oration of the Guru Nanak Dev University
1996: Sher-I-Kashmir Sheikh Mohammed Award of the SMS Medical College, Jaipur
1999: JALMA Trust Foundation Award of Indian council of Medical Research
1999-2009 Honorary Consultant to the Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMS)
2000: O.P. Bhasin Foundation Award for Science and Technology
2003: Chief of the Army Staff Award
2004: Khwarizmi international award by President of Iran (highest science honor in Iran)
2004: Member Honoris Causa’ Hungarian Academy of Sciences
2005: Basanti Devi Amir Chand Prize of Indian council of Medical Research
2005: Prof and Mrs GP Talwar Oration Award of ACBI, India
2007: Tata Innovation Fellowship award by the DBT, Govt. of India
2008: FOUR Decades Trust Oration Award of the SMS Medical College, Jaipur
2010: 8th Dr. Shamer Singh Oration award of the Anatomical Society of India
2010: National Institute of Virology Research Foundation Oration, Pune
2011: Dr.B.R. Ambedkar Award of ICMR for excellence in Medical Research
2012: Dr.H.M. Bhatia Memorial Trust Oration, Mumbai
2012: Member International Faculty for Immunology training courses for South and East Europe
2013: Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences (FTWAS)
2018: Malcolm Simons Oration by the Asia Pacific Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics Association
2019: Goyal Prize in Applied Sciences
2019: Fellow of the Indian Society of Organ Transplantation (FISOT)
2021: Fellow of the National Academy of Medical Sciences (FAMS)
Elected Offices in Professional Societies and Associations
1990-92: Secretary, Indian Immunology Society
1991-94: Secretary, INSA-IUIS National Committee on Immunology
1992-95, 2001-07, 2013-16 Elected council Member of the IUIS – Four times
1992-95,1995-2000: Founder Secretary-General, Federation of Immunological Societies of Asia-Oceania
1998-2000: President, Indian Immunology Society
1999 till date: Trustee member, Immunology Foundation of India
1998-99: Australasian and South East Asian Tissue Typing Association (ASEATTA)
2001- date: Life President, Indian Society for Histocompatibility &Immunogenetics
2001-04, 2004-07: Vice President of Federation of Immunological Societies of Asia-Oceania
2002: Elected ‘Council member’ of the International Histocompatibility Advisory Council
2010-12: President, Asia Pacific Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics Association (APHIA)
2022: Vice President (international affairs), Indian National Science Academy (3-yr term)
Other Awards and Distinctions
2004: Leader of the ‘Indian Delegation’ to Hungary to develop areas of Scientific cooperation
2012: Excellence in Immunology’ by the President, IUIS, Prof. Stefan Kaufmann
2012:Member,International Jury for Else Kroner Fresenius Award in Immunology, Berlin
2013 Member, ‘International Jury’ for Research awards for joint projects by Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) and Israel Research Foundation (IRF).
2018: Ravenshaw 150 Lecture Oration by the Ravenshaw University, Cuttack
2018: Honorary Professorship of Amity Institute of Virology and Immunology
Chair: Scientific Advisory committee of 15 national institutes of Indian council of Medical research
Chair/Member Institutional human ethics committee of 19 national instututes
Chair/Member: National committee for drafting guidelines for stem cell research
FHASc Member Honoris Causa, Hungarian Academy of Sciences 2004
FRCP (Hon) Fellow of the Royal college of Physicians, UK 2023
FISC Fellow of the International Science Council (France) 2023
FTWAS The World Academy of Sciences, Trieste Italy 2013
IUIS: Elected Council member’ – record 4 terms (1992-95, 2001-04, 2004-07, 2013-16)
1992-95, 1995-2000: Founder Secretary-General, Fed Immunol Soc Asia-Oceania (FIMSA)
1997-98: President, Australasian and South East Asian Tissue Typing Association (ASEATTA)
2002: Council member of the International Histocompatibility Advisory Council
FIMSA: Founder Secretary-General, 1992-95, 1995-2000 and then as Vice President of Federation of Immunol Soc Asia-Oceania, 2001-04, 2004-07
2003: Chevalier de L’Ordre National du Merite, (Govt of France)
2004: 17th KHWARIZMI International Award’ conferred by the President of the Republic of Iran (considered to be the highest Award for Science in Iran).
2012-19: IUIS: International Faculty for annual Immunology training courses for South and East Europe
2018: Life Membership award, Asia Pacific Histocompatibility & Immunogenetics Association
2018: Asia Pacific Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics Association – Prof Malcolm Simons Oration award
1997-98: President of the Australasian and South East Asian Tissue Typing Association (ASEATTA)
1997-98: President 6th Asia-Oceania Histocompatibility Conference (6AOH)
- Member, Central Board, NIH sponsored ‘Type 1 Diabetes Genetics Consortium (T1DGC)
- Member, INSERM-ICMR Joint working group to promote Indo-French Scientific
Collaboration
- Member, ICMR-Helmholtz ‘Indo–German Science Centre for Infectious Diseases’
- Leader of the ‘Indian Delegation’ to Hungary to develop areas of Scientific cooperation
- Leader of the ‘Indian Delegation’ to Germany to develop research projects in the area of
infectious diseases
- Plenary Speaker at JACIN 2008 (Jakarta Allergy and Clinical Immunology Network)
- Elected President of Asia Pacific Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics Association
(APHIA), 2010-12
- President, 5th FIMSA International Congress of Immunology, New Delhi, March 2012
- Member, International Selection Committee for ‘Else Kroner Fresenius Award’ in
Immunology, Berlin, Aug. 2012
- Leader of the ‘AIIMS Delegation’ to Universities in The Netherlands to develop areas of
scientific cooperation between Holland and AIIMS – August 2014.
- Guest Editor’, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol.1283, 2013.
- Award of ‘Excellence in Immunology’ by the President, IUIS, Prof. Stefan Kaufmann,
March 2012.
- Member, ‘International Jury’ for Research award of the joint Canadian Institutes for Health Research
(CIHR) and Israel Health Research Program.
- Member, ‘International Faculty, of the annual South Eastern European Immunology Schools (SEEIS
courses) since 2012, held in various countries
- Plenary Speaker, 19th International Congress of Immunology, Vienna, Aug 2025
- Visiting Professor at (i) Academisch Ziekenhuis Leiden, Holland (ii) Bir Hospital, Kathmandu iii) Siriraj Hospital Bangkok, Thailand iv) Catholic University of Korea, Seoul.
- Member International Advisory Committee, for the First FIMSA Congress of Immunology (Adelaide, Dec 1996) and Second FIMSA Congress of Immunology (Bangkok, Jan 2000), 3rd Congress (Hongzhou, China April 2005), 4th Congress (Taipei, Taiwan, Oct 2008), 6th Congress (Singapore, Aug. 2015).
- Councilor, Asia Oceania Histocompatibility (AOH) workshop
- Member, International Board for Travel Awards of Gender Equality and Career Development Committee of IUIS.
Academic Honors, Duties and Responsibilities
- Appointed “Honorary Professor” in Human Genetics, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar
(March 2009).
- Adjunct Visiting Professor of the Manipal University, 2015
- Honorary Senior Advisor, International Clinical Epidemiology Network (INCLEN) for five years, 2016
- Chairman of the ‘Travel and Symposia grants Committee’ of the CSIR
- Chairman of IC-SCR of THSTI, Faridabad
- Co-chair of the IC-SCR of SMS Medical College, Jaipur
- Member of the JIPMER Research Advisory Council, Pondicherry
- Member Technical evaluation committee of DHR to review proposals for intersectional convergence and coordination
- Member, Research Advisory Committee (RAC), AIIMS Bhopal, Apr 2019.
- Chair, Institutional Human Ethics Committee, AIIMS, Bhopal, March 2019.
Selected Publications
1. The HLA complex in Biology and Medicine: A Resource Book. Eds. N.K. Mehra, Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers (P) Ltd. 2010 (1st Edition).
2. Antibody Repertoire and Graft outcome following Solid Organ Transplantation – an eBook published by Frontiers in Immunology, Editors: Narinder K Mehra, Ajay K Baranwal, Brian D Tait, July 2017
3. COVID-19: Host immunity and Vaccines, Editor: Narinder K Mehra, Indian National Science Academy (INSA), New Delhi, 147 pages, April 2021.
Some prominent books as Guest Editor
1. Mehra NK. Guest Editor of `Human Immunology' (impact factor of 3.5) - May 1999 issue.
2. Mehra NK. Basic methods in HLA-DNA technology-A Manual of Techniques published for DBT, Govt of India, December 1989.
3. A.K. Sharma, Mehra NK, M. Behara, J. Abdul Razzaq, I. haladari, J. Ward. Diabetes mellitus and its complications. McMillan India Publishers, 199
4. Mehra NK. Molecular Technologies for HLA testing: focus on donor selection, Fine Printers, New Delhi, 1996.
5. Mehra NK and Sood OP. Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation – Ranbaxy Science Foundation publication, 2002.
6. Mehra NK. Guest Editor, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol.1283, 2013
7. Mehra, NK. Guest Editor, Indian Journal of Medical Research, 2013.
Other Information
https://twas.org/directory/mehra-narinder-kumar
Summary of impact at National level
Prof. Narinder Mehra is a doyen among medical researchers, teachers and educators who almost single handedly established the specialty of ‘Transplant Immunology’ from scratch in India, culminating in the world class facility in the leading medical institution of the country. He has spent over four decades in teaching, training and mentoring generations of graduate medical students, scientists and Ph.D. scholars both in India as well as those coming from other countries. He started his scientific career in the early 1970s in HLA genetics and Transplant Immunology when this subject was virtually non-existent and its impact in Medicine and Biology was beginning to be understood worldwide. He often had to work under extreme difficult conditions with very little funding and mentoring support. Soon, his laboratory attained international recognition as the ‘Core HLA facility’ in this part of the world. It is primarily due to his efforts that the organ and bone marrow transplant activity got immensely activated with almost every center in India seeking his help and expertise. In 1986, he was invited by the Fred Hutchinson cancer research Centre, Seattle, USA to work with Prof Donald Thomas (Nobel Laureate) on advanced donor selection strategies for patients requiring bone marrow transplantation. Sustained efforts led him to establish Indian Marrow Donor Registry, thus facilitating unrelated donor transplants in the country. He rose through the ranks to become the senior Professor and Dean (research) at AIIMS New Delhi. Working in a mission mode, he made original contributions in mycobacterial and autoimmune diseases leading to a better understanding of the molecular basis of their susceptibility. He was the first to demonstrate several novel HLA genes and extensive genomic diversity in India. Information has been greatly valuable for optimal donor selection in transplantation and for the design of MHC based vaccines. He was the first to report that patients with multi drug resistant tuberculosis having specific HLA genes are more likely to develop severe disease, discovered a set of HLA alleles and haplotypes that favor faster progression to HIV disease, identified important immunological predictors for graft rejection for patients requiring kidney transplantation which led him to publish an international book unravelling the role of alloantibodies and transplant injury. During the COVID pandemic, he played an important role in public education by publishing regular columns in newspapers highlighting aspects of host immunity and vaccines against the virus, conducting webinars and public lectures for a range of audience including the lay public and experts in biomedicine. He also produced a white paper on COVID-19 - host immunity and vaccines.
Summary of impact at international level
Prof Mehra is credited with the development of this specialty in neighboring countries, trained a large number of young researchers not only from India, but also other countries (Nepal, Sri Lanka, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh), organized the 6th Asia-Oceania Histocompatibility Workshop in New Delhi in 1998; 22nd Annual Conference of the Australasian and South East Asian Tissue Typing Association meeting in 1998, 33rd ASEATTA in 2009 and several training courses for young researchers. He is the only Asian to have been elected on the ‘International Histocompatibility Advisory Council’. In 2018, the Asia Pacific Histocompatibility Association (APHIA) conferred on him the life-time honorary membership. Currently, he has attained an extraordinary level of expertise, skill, knowledge and stands tall as the leading expert in HLA and Immunogenetics internationally. He was a member of the seven-member jury for the prestigious ‘Else Kroner Fresenius international award’ in Immunology and member of CIHR-IRF international jury to recommend top-notch joint research projects for Canadian and Israeli research scientists. In 1992, he laid the foundation for the creation of the Federation of Immunological societies of Asia-Oceania (FIMSA) and was elected as the ‘Founder Secretary General’, a position he held for two terms, followed by Vice President for another two terms. He also contributed significantly towards the establishment of Immunology societies in several countries, particularly Sri Lanka, Iran, Bangladesh by personally visiting and interacting with groups in these countries. Today, these are full members of the International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS). He has the unique distinction of having been elected on the IUIS Council for a record four terms of 3 years each. He played key role in bringing the 10th International Congress of Immunology to India, held in New Delhi in 1998. He was Vice President of the Congress. Later, he served as co-chair of the Gender Equality and Career Development (GECD) committee of the IUIS. He is a Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences (FTWAS) and of the International Science council (FISC). He represents India in the BRICS Forum, International Science Council and in science 20 (S20) deliberations of the G20 countries.
Social and community service
With support from the ICMR, he played a key role in establishing the National center for Hemoglobinopathies in Chandrapur Distt of Maharashtra. This is proving to be of great help to the predominantly marginalized Tribal population of that area, particularly for patients suffering from sickle cell disease and thalassemia. Further, he worked extensively in the tribal belt of Gwalior to understand the immunogenetic basis of the rather high prevalence of tuberculosis in the Sahariya Tribe and identified informative HLA-linked biomarkers of susceptibility to TB in this tribe.
He was co-chair of the IUIS committee on Gender equality and career development. During the COVID pandemic, he played an important role in public education by publishing regular columns in newspapers highlighting aspects of host immunity and vaccines against the virus, conducting webinars and public lectures for a range of audience including the lay public and experts in biomedicine. He produced a white paper on ‘COVID-19 - host immunity and vaccines’, published by the Indian National Science Academy. He strongly believes that the best way to thwart emergence of future neo viruses is to address the question of health infrastructure inequalities globally. Further, it is important to discuss issues emerging due to climate change and impact on health as well as the question of energy security.
He has been representing the voice of Indian science at G20/S20 forums for the past few years and was the coordinator during for the Science 20 engagement group during India’s G20 Presidency. India has all the reasons to be proud of the fact that despite several possibilities of settling in the West, Prof Mehra preferred to stay back in India and worked with utmost dedication to bring the country on the world map in this important area of Medicine.
Major Highlights of the career
Professor Mehra has made several original contributions in Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics with special reference to i) immunological aspects of organ and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, ii) biomarkers of disease susceptibility in mycobacterial, autoimmune and rheumatological diseases, iii) Genetic diversity of HLA genes at the molecular level, iv) MHC genomics and Indian Marrow Donor Registry.
i) His group was the first in India to establish DNA based molecular technologies for HLA analysis including sequence-based methods and his laboratory has been regarded as the ‘core laboratory’ internationally. Additionally, they developed more efficient methods for transplant related donor specific antibody (DSA) analysis and assays for donor chimerism using STR/VNTR probes and Gene scan technologies. Several papers were published on these aspects.
ii) In mycobacterial diseases, his observations on the involvement of arginine residues at positions 13,70/71 of the DRB1 gene in leprosy (Pocket 4 residues) are of great significance in understanding the mechanism of T cell activation in leprosy. Using multi case families of leprosy from the Wardha region, his group in 1979 was the first to report an MHC linked control of susceptibility to this disease. Later, they also showed that the MHC phenotype of the individual patient controls the type of immune response (TH1 or TH2) that develops following mycobacterial infection. Identification of peptide presenting MHC molecules and their sequence determination paved the way for studies on MHC based vaccine/immunotherapeutic approaches in mycobacterial diseases.
iii) In pulmonary tuberculosis, he showed for the first time that the multi-drug resistance tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is controlled by MHC linked genes and that patients with HLA- DRB1*1501 having valine residues at position 86 in ‘pocket 1’ of the peptide binding groove are more likely to develop severe disease with bilateral extensive lung lesions than those negative for it or carrying glycine residues. Further, his group provided evidence to suggest that specific MHC phenotypes play a critical role in the development of infection in drug resistant forms of PTB by inducing anergy/ unresponsiveness to M. tuberculosis leading to spurt in bacillary population, a situation similar to lepromatous leprosy.
iv) In HIV infection, his group defined a set of HLA alleles and MHC haplotypes that favor faster progression to disease. They found an overall preponderance of HLA-B*35 Px alleles in the Indian gene pool. These alleles are capable of binding and presenting HIV peptides carrying any amino acid residues but tyrosine at position P9 and are incapable of evoking efficient immune response, thus favoring faster progression to AIDS. Their data on chemokines and their receptor polymorphism also supports the above in that the more protective alleles and haplotypes of CCR5, and CCR2 are either absent or characteristically reduced in frequency in the Indian population.
v) In autoimmune diseases (particularly type 1 diabetes and celiac disease), his group identified multiple HLA-DR3+ve haplotypes that are disease associated, of which two, namely A26-B8- DR3 and Ax-B50-DR3 are ‘unique’ amongst Indians. Using a battery of SNPs and microsatellites, they demonstrated important genomic differences between these haplotypes and those that occur predominantly among the Caucasoid. Again, they were the first to define the predominant occurrence of an autoimmune disease favoring ‘unique ancestral haplotype’ that they designated as AH8.2 in Indians and to show the absence of Caucasian haplotype AH8.1 in India. They extended these studies to include other candidate genes in T1D and CD.
vi) His group is the first to demonstrate an extensive genomic diversity of HLA genes in the Indian population. They reported several ‘unique HLA alleles’ and ‘novel HLA haplotypes’ in India that may have arisen due to point mutation and recombination events. Natural selection due to extensive microbial pressure is also an important driver of extensive diversity in the Indian population. This data is greatly valuable not only in donor selection in the transplantation context but also for the design of MHC based vaccination approaches.
vii) Using molecular techniques of PCR-SSOP, he was the first to demonstrate remarkable heterogeneity in the HLA-B27 gene in India. Among the several known molecular subtypes of the B27 gene, B*2704, B*2705 and B*2707 were shown by him to be the disease associated in Indians. In rheumatoid arthritis, of the 22 major molecular subtypes of DR4, only DRB1*0405 and DRB1*0401 were found to confer greatest risk in Asian Indian RA patients. These alleles share amino acid sequences in ‘Pocket 4’ of the MHC binding motif. He also demonstrated the protective effect of *0403 allele in the Indian population and explained this to be an important factor for the occurrence of comparatively less severe RA in India.
viii) His studies in the transplantation context have revealed that in situations involving live related donor renal transplantation, HLA matching has an overriding influence in long term graft survival. His group identified important immunological predictors for graft rejection, which include quantitation of interleukin-2 receptors, IgG anti-F(ab)2 antibodies, TNF alpha levels and TH1/TH2 cytokines. Further, importance of flowcytometric cross matches and regular screening of donor specific anti-HLA antibodies and MICA (MHC class I like antigens) through solid phase Luminex platform in the recipient both at the pre as well as post-transplant stages has been highlighted in his studies.
ix) He established the Indian Marrow Donor Registry (IMDR) of voluntary unrelated donors for patients of Asian Indian origin requiring bone marrow transplantation. This registry is now awaiting major funding from the Ministry of Health, Govt of India.
x) Professor Mehra conducted several training courses and workshops, which have resulted in the establishment of several more HLA centers in India and neighboring countries. Indeed, almost everybody doing HLA based studies in India in academic or the corporate sector has been either his student or undergone training under him.