Ruby Pawankar, MD, PhD, FRCP (UK), FAAAAI, is currently the President of the Asia-Pacific Association of Allergy Asthma and Clinical Immunology (APAAACI). She is also the Historian (2016-2017) and Past-President of the World Allergy Organization (WAO) (2014-2015), and served as President, WAO, 2012-2013. She is also currently the President of the Indian Academy of Allergy (IAA) and Council Board Member of the Collegium Internationale Allergolicum (CIA). She is Professor of Allergy, Department of Pediatrics at Nippon Medical School, Tokyo, Japan, Guest Professor, Kyung Hee University School of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea, and Showa University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan. After graduating in medicine from the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) Pune, India, Prof. Pawankar post graduated from BJ Medical College, Pune and then trained in Allergy & Clinical Immunology at Nippon Medical School and Juntendo University School of Medicine in Tokyo, Japan.
Prof. Pawankar serves on numerous committees of several academic organizations and grant reviews, is a Member/Fellow of many academic organizations, including the Japanese Society of Allergology (JSA), AAAAI, EAACI, ACAAI, Royal College of Physicians, UK. Prof. Pawankar is a recipient of many academic awards like the International Distinguished Fellow Award of ACAAI, the Lifetime Achievement Award in Allergy, DN Shivpuri Award, the SK Malik Oration Award, and the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award from the President of India for excellence in medicine. Besides her clinical and teaching assignments in allergy, her research has focused especially on airway allergies inparticular the cellular and molecular mechanisms of allergy, impact of environmental pollutants, and novel therapies for allergies. Among her key contributions is the role of gd T cells in allergy and mast cells with increased Fcepsilon receptor expression as a major source of the obligatory pro- allergic Th2 cytokines capable of driving local allergen specific IgE synthesis. She has also worked on the role of epithelial cells as immune-regulators in allergic airway disease This has resulted in 460 publications and an h-index of 64. She is an Editor of several peer-reviewed journals and books including ‘Allergy Frontiers’ by Springer Nature, the WAO White Book on Allergy, Update on Respiratory Disorders, etc and is a co-author of several consensus documents and an expert panelist at United Nation’s Rio+20 pre panel on Environment and Health.
Prof. Pawankar has organized several international congresses including the 10th Trans Pacific Allergy Congress, the 9th Asian Rhinology Symposium, the Middle East Allergy Congress, the WAO International Scientific Conference (WISC) 2012, the World Allergy Congress 2013, Milan, Italy, was Scientific Chair for APAAACI-APAPARI Joint Congress 2016 and many educational programs and has been visiting faculty at several reputed institutions worldwide.
At an organizational level her vision continues to be to create a channel of dialogue with multidisciplinary stakeholders to address the unmet global public health issue of asthma and allergic disease in an integrated and holistic approach that can lead to increased resources for research, improved patient care, better health care delivery, and preventative strategies.