Awards

Asian & Oceanian Outstanding Achievement Epilepsy Award

The Asian & Oceanian Outstanding Achievement Epilepsy Award recognises and pays tribute to medical and non-medical professionals for their extraordinary contributions to epilepsy care in this region. The fives awardees, detailed below, will be acknowledged in the Welcome Ceremony on 17 November 2022.

Raymond Azman Ali

Prof Raymond has been the Chairman of the Malaysian Epilepsy Council, (an ILAE Chapter) since 2002. He and eminent neurosurgeon Prof Benedict Selladurai pioneered the first epilepsy surgery programme in Malaysia in 1987 at the UKM Medical Centre.

He was the sole Asian Representative of the 1998-1999 ILAE sub-commission on neuroimaging. He was the chief editor of the Consensus Guidelines on the Management of Epilepsy in 2005, 2010 and 2017. He was a member of the Ministry of Health Task Force on the Association of HLA-B*1502 and AEDs, Chairman of the first Malaysian Vagal Nerve Stimulation Advisory Board, and reviewer for the 2020 Sanofi-Aventis and Epilepsy Council MSN Expert Opinion on Valproate Use in Women.

In addition, he has been facilitating and giving lectures at various EEG and epilepsy workshops in South East Asia and Pakistan. He has also written extensively and given talks on epilepsy, to the public.

 

 

P Sarat Chandra

Dr Chandra is currently a senior Professor, Dept of Neurosurgery at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi and has established one of the first and largest epilepsy surgery program in India now functioning for the past 25 years. His personal experience is over 3,000 cases of epilepsy surgeries. He established the Centre of Excellence for Epilepsy and MEG resource facility with funding from Dept of Biotechnology (Ministry of Science & Technology, India). This is the first of its kind of facility in India with MEG and dedicated Clinical/research faculty, fellows, PhD’s, and technicians and staff.  He has published over 550 papers, has 12 extramural research grants and 9 patents. He was the main contributor for surgery for surgical arm for the first ever RCT for paediatric epilepsy surgery [Diwedi R et al; N Engl J Med 2017]. The study demonstrated a 10 fold improvement of good outcome for surgery in Children vs medical treatment (77% vs 7%) and also demonstrated better cognitive outcomes for surgery in Children with drug resistant epilepsy. He started the first epilepsy fellowship program in India and has trained over 12 fellows in epilepsy & epilepsy surgery from several parts of India and other countries (Indonesia, Nepal, Kenya). His centre helped in raising awareness towards epilepsy research in India. The MEG facility, the first for India, has performed more than 3000 MEG’s.

His key areas of research include: Study of various bio-markers/receptors in abnormal epileptogenic areas (histone deacetylases alterations, altered kynurenine pathway metabolism, IDH-R132H-FAT1-ROS-HIF-1alfa signalling pathways, mTOR pathway in FCD’s, genome-wide DNA methylation and RNAseq analysis, GABA receptor mediated epileptogenicity, epigenetic regulations, endogenous activity of NMDA receptors, dual networks). He has >100 papers in areas of basic research. He described several new surgical techniques: Endoscopic hemispherotomy, Endoscopic corpus callosotomy with commissurotomy, Robotic guided technique for thermo coagulation for hypothalamic hamartoma, Among the first to introduce SSEG program in India, Robotic thermocoagulative hemispherotomy (ROTCH). He is Co-founder of Ekatwam. This group is involved in providing free medicines and helping poor patients with the cost of epilepsy surgery. This group has now helped > 10,000 patients.

 

Dede Gunawan

Dr Dede Gunawan was born in 1940 in Sukabumi West Java Indonesia. He graduated as MD in 1967 and as a neurologist from Padjajaran University Bandung Indonesia in 1977 then became a teaching staff. In 1995-2001 he became the head of department of neurology. He is still active as a honorary lecturer.

From 1980, he directly engage in the Indonesian National Epilepsy Foundation ( PERPEI). He organised the First National Epilepsy Simposium in 1984, during the National Neurology/psychiatric/neurosurgery meeting in Medan, Sumatra Island Indonesia.

In 2001, he was asked by Prof Mahar Marjono (one of the founding member) to replace him in Asean Oceanian council. In 2002 he invited speakers from Asean and Japan in epilepsy Seminar in Bandung, Indonesia, next was known as the  the first ASEPA seminar. He was representative of the Indonesian ILAE Chapter from 2001-2011. He was elected as the chair of South East Asian Neurological Association in 2011.

 

 

Seung Bong Hong

Prof Seung Bong Hong has trained 60 epilepsy fellows for the past 30 years. He contributed for the proper reimbursement of EEG and video-EEG tests, intracranial electrodes, VNS and DBS. He has dedicated to improve epilepsy treatment and decrease SUDEP by the promotion of epilepsy surgery and VNS, and developed a new government support system for intractable epilepsy patients which is 90% reimbursement of all medical costs including drug, tests, and surgery. He improved a depression treatment and suicide prevention in epilepsy patients by changing a regulation on antidepressant prescription and by a suicide prevention campaign. Prof Hong established National Epilepsy Care Center which consults and cares medical, social welfare, emotional, legal problems and surgery cost of all epilepsy patients, and introduced magnetoencephalography and ROSA robot system. Currently he is working for a government budget for Regional Epilepsy Hospital system and a right protection law and a social work service reimbursement for epilepsy patients.

 

 

 

Akio Ikeda

Akio Ikeda has been Professor in the Department of Epilepsy, Movement Disorders and Physiology at Kyoto University School of Medicine in Kyoto, Japan since 2013. He was President of the Japan Epilepsy Society (2017-2021), and the regional chair of Commission of ILAE Asia & Oceania (2017-2021). He has been working as the ASEPA member and for EEG examination board since 2010s, contributing to the teaching of EEG and epilepsy initially in the Asian Oceanian region, followed by the more multidisciplinary problems as the regional chair of Commission of ILAE Asia & Oceania recently.

His international activity was initially led by the late Prof Masakazu Seino, Prof Yushi Inoue, Prof Tatsuya Tanaka, and his old friend Prof Shih Hui Lim. Akio Ikeda belives that collaboration in our region is the most important driving force to improve and develop all aspects related to epilepsy and for people with epilepsy.

 

 

Golden Light Awards