Gayatri Saberwal

Gayatri Saberwal

Gayatri Saberwal
Consultant
Contact: gsaberwal [at] tigs [dot] res [dot] in

Education

PhD, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, 1992

Experience

  • Professor, Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology, 2021–2024
  • Dean, Academic Affairs, Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology, 2015–2024
  • Faculty Scientist and Chief Coordinator, Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology, 2003–2015
  • Faculty Scientist, Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology, 2001–2021
  • Post-doctoral fellow at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, 1992–1995

Expertise

  • Policy research

Areas of interest

Biomedical policy

Honors and Awards (since 2014)

  • Chair, Thematic Group-Health, Government of India’s process to come out with the Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy-2020. (2020)
  • Member, reconstituted Karnataka Knowledge Commission, Government of Karnataka (2019)
  • Member, Editorial Board, Current Science (2019-2024)
  • Independent Director, Foundation for Neglected Disease Research, Bangalore (2017–2020)
  • Member, Bioincubators Nurturing Entrepreneurship for Scaling Technologies (BioNEST) Core Committee, BIRAC, Government of India (2017–2020)
  • Member, State-Level Coordination Committee for sanction of incentives/concessions under the Biotech Policy – II (Government of Karnataka) (2016)
  • Member, (Reconstituted) Expert Committee, Bioincubator Support Scheme (BISS), BIRAC, Government of India (2016–2017)
  • Member, C-CAMP Incubation Advisory Committee, C-CAMP, Bangalore (2016)
  • Director, International Institute of Information Technology (Bangalore) Innovation Centre (2015–2018)
  • Chair of the Management Committee, Karnataka Knowledge Commission, Government of Karnataka (2014–2019)
  • Member, IIT Madras Bioincubator Advisory Council (2014–2019)
  • Member, Board of Governors, Life Sciences Incubation Centre, Biotech Park, Bangalore (2014)
  • Member, Karnataka Knowledge Commission, Government of Karnataka (2014–)

Publications (Since 2014)

  • Samanta AD, Mendiratta J, Saberwal G. Identifying trials run in India, registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, is not straightforward. Journal of Biosciences, 50: 27, DOI: 10.1007/s12038-025-00519-1 (2025)
  • Ravindranath AG, Benny A, Bhalla IS, Vaswani R and Saberwal G. Clinical trial registration in India: 12% of drug regulatory trials are not registered, as required by law. Health Research Policy and Systems 23:19 (2025) https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-025-01288-x
  • Borah R, Samanta AD, Mendiratta J, Mishra M, Saberwal G. Identifying trials run in India that are registered in other clinical trial registries. BMC Medical Research Methodology 24:201. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12874-024-02336-w
  • Borah R, Samanta AD, Rajueni K, Vaswani V, Saberwal G. In India, most Principal Investigators have run very few trials over the years. Frontiers in Medicine Sec. Regulatory Science 11:1424570. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2024.1424570 (2024)
  • Samanta AD, Borah R, Saberwal G. Three levels of discrepancies in the records of trials run in India, registered with the European Union Clinical Trials Register. Front. Med. (Sec. Regulatory Science). 11:1357930. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2024.1357930 (2024)
  • Bhalla IS, Ravindranath AG, Vaswani R , Saberwal G. Data from the Indian drug regulator and from Clinical Trials Registry-India does not always match. Front. Med. (Sec. Regulatory Science). 11:1346208. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2024.1346208 (2024)
  • Mendiratta J, Pillamarapu M, Saberwal G. In Clinical Trials Registry-India, the classification of sponsors needs to be standardised. Indian J Med Ethics 2024 Jan-Mar; 9(1) NS: 11-18. https://doi.org/10.20529/IJME.2023.071 (2023)
  • Mendiratta J, Vaswani R N, Saberwal G. Representation from India in multinational, interventional, Phase 2 or 3 trials registered in Clinical Trials Registry-India: A cross-sectional study. PLOS ONE 18(9): e0284434. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284434 (2023)
  • Mendiratta J, Pillamarapu, M, Chakraborty I, Vaswani R N, Vadlamani, S, Saberwal G. Ethnic representation in interventional clinical trials run in India. The Lancet Regional Health – Southeast Asia, 15: 100230 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lansea.2023.100230
  • Saberwal, G, Choudhury MC, and Chakraborty I. Facilitating audits of clinical trial data in documents of the Food and Drug Administration. The Journal of Scientific Practice and Integrity. https://doi.org/10.35122/001c.57582.
  • Kapoor M, Ravi S, Saberwal G. Conducting clinical trials only in India’s large cities is unlikely to sample the country’s ethnicity well enough. Current Science, 123 (12) 1514–1517. doi: 10.18520/cs/v123/i12/1514-1517 (2022)
  • Chakraborty, I, Shreya, A, Mendiratta, J, Bhan, A. and Saberwal, G. An analysis of deficiencies in the Ethics Committee data of interventional trials registered with the Clinical Trials Registry – India. PLOS Global Public Health, 2(10): e0000617. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0000617 (2022)
  • Chakraborty M, Choudhury MC, Chakraborty I and Saberwal, G. Rare disease patients in India are rarely involved in international orphan drug trials. PLOS Glob Public Health 2(8): e0000890. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0000890 (2022)
  • Mahanta U, Saberwal G and Sharma G. Are countries becoming better at SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance? Frontiers in Public Health 10:887955. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.887955 (2022)
  • Choudhury M. C., Chakraborty I and Saberwal, G. Discrepancies between FDA documents and ClinicalTrials.gov for Orphan Drug-related clinical trial data. PLOS Global Public Health 2(4): e0000261. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0000261 (2022)
  • Kalia, K, Saberwal, G. and Sharma, G. The lag in SARS-CoV-2 genome submissions to GISAID. Nature Biotechnology, 39, 1058–1060. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-021-01040-0. (2021)
  • Venugopal, N. and Saberwal, G. A comparative analysis of important public trial registries, and a proposal for an interim ideal one. PLOS ONE, 16(5): e0251191. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251191 (2021)
  • Kumari, S. Mohan, A. and Saberwal, G. Hidden duplicates: 10s or 100s of Indian trials, registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, have not been registered in India, as required by law. PLOS ONE 15(6): e0234925 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0234925
  • Pillamarapu, M., Mohan, A. and Saberwal, G. A response to the Letter regarding Pillamarapu, M., Mohan, A. and Saberwal, G. An analysis of deficiencies in the data of interventional drug trials registered with Clinical Trials Registry – India. Trials 20: 535 (2019). Trials 21: 39 (2020). https://rdcu.be/cc7DM
  • Choudhury M. C. and Saberwal, G. The work, goals, challenges, achievements, and recommendations of orphan medicinal product organizations in India: an interview-based study. Orphanet J Rare Dis. 14: 241 (2019).
  • Pillamarapu, M., Mohan, A. and Saberwal, G. An analysis of deficiencies in the data of interventional drug trials registered with Clinical Trials Registry – India. Trials 20: 535 (2019)
  • Chaturvedi, N., Mehrotra, B., Kumari, S. Gupta, S., Subramanya, H. S. and Saberwal, G. Some data quality issues at ClinicalTrials.gov. Trials 20:378 (2019). doi: 10.1186/s13063-019-3408-2
  • Choudhury M. C. and Saberwal, G. The role of patient organizations in the rare disease ecosystem in India: An interview based study. Orphanet J Rare Dis. 14: 117 (2019)
  • Dash, S. P. and Saberwal, G. The bio-¬incubation boom in India. Current Science 115, 228–233 (2018)
  • Mehrotra, B. and Saberwal, G. Patents protecting biologics or small molecule drugs are litigated, not others awarded to drug discovery companies. J Intellec Prop Rights 21, 149–156 (2016)
  • Keezhupalat, S.M., Naik, A., Gupta, S., Raghunathan, S. and Saberwal, G. An analysis of sponsors/collaborators of 69,160 drug trials registered with ClinicalTrials.gov. PLoS ONE 11(2): e0149416. (2016).
  • Saberwal, G. India’s intellectual property-based biomedical start-ups. Current Science 110, 167–171 (2016)
  • Jarosławski, S. and Saberwal, G. In eHealth in India today, the nature of work, the challenges and the finances: An interview-based study. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 14, 1–12 (2014)

Editorials and general articles in Current Science (Since 2014)

  • Saberwal, G. Drug Prices (Editorial) Current Science 127 (2), 131–132 (2024)
  • Saberwal, G. Anti-vaxxers (Editorial) Current Science 126 (12), 1411–1412 (2024)
  • Saberwal, G. Institution building (Editorial) Current Science 126 (9), 987–988 (2024)
  • Kataria A and Saberwal G. FAIR principles, Data transparency and Drug approvals. (Editorial) Current Science 125 (12), 1287–1288 (2023)
  • Saberwal G. Clinical trial transparency – Status and Prospects (Editorial) Current Science 124 (11), 1239–1240 (2023)
  • Saberwal G. How to make Clinical Trials Registry-India world class. Current Science, 124 (7), 785–789 (2023). doi: 10.18520/cs/v124/i7/785-789.
  • Saberwal, G. The many uses of data in public clinical trial registries. Current Science 120, 1686–1691 (2021). doi: 10.18520/cs/v120/i11/1686-1691
  • Saberwal, G. Breaking all the rules, at lightning speed (Editorial) Current Science 119, 7–8 (2020)
  • Saberwal, G. India to power the more widespread use of biosimilars? (Guest Editorial) Current Science 116, 1451–1453 (2019)
  • Subramanya, H. S. and Saberwal, G. India needs more policy research. (Guest Editorial) Current Science 116, 1279–1280 (2019)
  • Saberwal, G. Will our education system enable India to be a super-power any time soon? (Guest Editorial) Current Science 116, 509–510 (2019). Translated into Hindi, and available in the December 2019 edition of Srote magazine. Distributed by Srote Features.
  • Choudhuri, M. C., and Saberwal, G. Patient advocacy. (Guest Editorial) Current Science 116, 345–346 (2019)
  • Saberwal, G. Cuba: A different kind of role model for biotechnology. (Guest Editorial) Current Science 115, 1835–1836 (2018)
  • Saberwal, G. Bio-business in brief: What ails clinical trials? Current Science 115, 1648–1652 (2018)
  • Mukherjee, S. and Saberwal, G. Managing India’s AIDS crisis in the 2000s: Quantitative modeling had impact. (Guest Editorial) Current Science 114, 2005–2006 (2018)
  • Saberwal, G. Regulatory harmonization: a view from India. (Guest Editorial) Current Science 114, 423–424 (2018)
  • VijayRaghavan, K. and Saberwal, G. Bio-business in brief: The case for ambitious action in the public sector, Current Science 113, 1841–1845 (2017)
  • Saberwal, G. Supporting start-ups (Guest Editorial) Current Science 113, 195–196 (2017).

Perspectives and other articles (since 2014)

  • Saberwal, G. Simpler tests could slash biosimilar costs, widen patient access. The Hindu. 3 Aug 2025
  • Saberwal, G. Rare diseases have a lot to gain from greater awareness. The Hindu. 20 July 2025
  • Saberwal, G. Using bacteriophages to combat antimicrobial resistance. The Hindu. 8 June 2025
  • Saberwal, G. How does U.K.’s OpenSAFELY ensure transparency? The Hindu. 11 Oct 2024.
  • Saberwal, G. Clinical trial registries: The good, and the not so good. Journal of Biosciences 49: 90 DOI: 10.1007/s12038-024-00477-0 (2024)
  • IRIWI. I Realised I Wasn’t Interested … Inspirational stories of science career transitions. Eds. Saberwal G and Kaushik K. IndiaBioScience (June, 2023). Available at https://indiabioscience.org/indiabioreads/iriwi-i-realized-i-wasnt-interested
  • Saberwal, G. The need for a new keyword – ‘Trial registry-metaresearch’ – to track certain uses of clinical trial registry records. Trials 24:190 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-023-07231-1. https://rdcu.be/c7EaS Chakraborty I,
  • Saberwal G. CTRI requirement of prospective trial registration: Not always consistent. Indian J Med Ethics. 2022 Oct-Dec;VII(4): 312-314. doi: 10.20529/IJME.2022.033.
  • Subramanya, H. S. and Saberwal, G. Karnataka Vision 2025: BT Sector. Sectoral report to KPMG. (November 2017)
  • Saberwal, G. Interview by BioStandups (August 2017) (http://www.biostandups.com/face-of-the-month/#1505358038267-1cd8a74f-9174)
  • Saberwal, G. On being a professional mutant. Nature Biotechnology 32, 106–107 (2014)

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