S. K. Shankar

Key facts

• Public sources give his dates as 27 January 1947 to 5 September 2022; status is therefore inactive.
• He was Professor and Head of the Department of Neuropathology at NIMHANS from 1998 to 2012 and is described as a former Director of NIMHANS.
• A tribute titled A tribute to the legend in neuropathology: Professor S. K. Shankar, by Anita Mahadevan, was published in Indian J Pathol Microbiol 2022;65(4):970-973.
• He founded the NIMHANS brain bank, set up in 1995 as the first in India; it is now the nodal centre of the ICMR-funded Brain Bank Network India.
• With P. Satishchandra he published a pilot series of 30 CJD cases in India from 1971 to 1990 (Neuroepidemiology 1991), and a later NIMHANS paper credits Shankar et al. with 69 cases from Bengaluru over 30 years.
• Correction: the 2016 Indian J Psychol Med CJD series (R92) is by Chandra, Issac, Philip and Gadad, not by Shankar; it only cites his earlier registry work.
• Europe PMC lists 13 prion or CJD papers with him as author between 1989 and 2019, including a 1989 Annals of Neurology paper with the NINDS Gibbs and Gajdusek group on trigeminal ganglia in CJD.
• He co-authored the 2002 study of eight CJD brain biopsies showing how prion protein staining changes with illness duration.
• He was senior author of a 2009 autopsy report of Heidenhain variant CJD in which MRI changes and prion protein deposits were documented.
• He co-authored the NIMHANS in-house CSF 14-3-3 dot blot paper (50 CJD cases against 70 controls, 2016).
• His 2019 familial CJD commentary with Anita Mahadevan says Indian data are lacking because genetic testing is scarce, and calls for a genetic testing facility and a national referral laboratory linked to the CJD registry.
• In 2005 he and Satishchandra asked in the Lancet whether UK BSE could have originated from the Indian subcontinent through imported bone meal.
• His last indexed papers (2021 to 2024) cover brain banking, brain proteomics and HIV; none is a prion paper.

Timeline

1. 1989Trigeminal ganglia in CJD paper with the NINDS Gajdusek group.
2. 1991CJD in India 1971 to 1990 series published with P. Satishchandra.
3. 1995NIMHANS brain bank established.
4. 1998Became Head of Neuropathology at NIMHANS (to 2012).
5. 2002Brain biopsy study of prion protein staining in CJD published.
6. 2005Lancet letter on a possible Indian origin of UK BSE.
7. 2009Heidenhain variant CJD autopsy report published.
8. 2016CSF 14-3-3 dot blot paper published.
9. 2019Familial CJD commentary calling for genetic testing in India published.
10. 2022Brain banking in India review with Anita Mahadevan published.
11. 2022Death recorded by public sources.
12. 2022Tribute by Anita Mahadevan published in Indian J Pathol Microbiol 65(4).