BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
NAME
POSITION TITLE
JACOB, TONY GEORGE
Assistant Professor, Department of Anatomy,
AIIMS, New Delhi
EDUCATION/TRAINING
INSTITUTION AND LOCATION
Government Medical College, University of
Calicut, Kozhikode, Kerala, India
Maulana Azad Medical College, University of
Delhi, Delhi, India
National Board of Examinations, New Delhi, India
All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi,
India
DEGREE
M.B.B.S.
MM/YY
FIELD OF STUDY
05/2002
Medicine and Surgery
04/2006
Anatomy- Surgical
anatomy and
histogenesis of the
ethmoid
D.N.B.
(Anatomy)
07/2007
Anatomy
Ph.D.
09/2013
Experimental Acute
Pancreatitis
M.D.
(Anatomy)
A. Personal Statement
I am a medical graduate and have an M.D. in anatomy from Delhi Universtiy for which the topic of my study
was the histogenesis and surgical anatomy of the human ethmoid sinus. The work established many
morphometric parameters that could be useful to an endoscopic sinus surgeon. Wanting to extend my ability to
pose questions and find answers to them in a more effective manner, I joined the Department of Anatomy at
the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India, which is a premiere medical institute in South Asia
There I stared work with various projects in stereology, which is a specialized and state of the art morphometric
technique, with Professor T.S. Roy using the StereoInvestigator software. Thereafter, in 2008 I enrolled myself
as a Ph.D. candidate with Prof. Roy. Since then, I have been working on the pathogenesis of acute
pancreatitis. During the course of my doctoral studies, we in our laboratory established the caerulein injection
model of AP in mice, a first in India. We tried to study the role of cytokines in the pathogenesis of severe acute
pancreatitis in the caerulein-induced mouse model for which purpose we used thalidomide and curcumin for
their known role as anti-cytokine agents in various studies of inflammatory conditions similar to the different
types of pancreatitis. We confirmed the presence of inflammation not only biochemically but also
histopathologically. Biochemical tests like estimation of plasma amylase, tissue myeloperoxidase activity to
estimate neutrophilic infiltration and plasma cytokine levels using ELISA and Luminex platform indicated the
presence of inflammation. Further, the histopathological techniques like staining of tissue sections with
hematoxylin and eosin, PAS, Masson’s trichrome, silver staining for reticular fibres, transmission electron
microscopy and immuno-electron microscopy revealed that endoplasmic reticular stress may have a significant
role to play in the pathogenesis of the disease. This finding we tried to confirm by various molecular biological
techniques like Western blotting and quantitative RT-PCR. The drugs thalidomide and curcumin, used
separately in the study, showed that the former ameliorated systemic manifestations of severe AP, like lung
and kidney damage; whereas the latter helped to decrease the local pancreatic injury. To ensure that the drug
was available for having any effect we determined the circulating concentration of the drugs and its level in the
pancreatic tissue by using the technique of HPLC and tandem Mass Spectroscopy.
During my term as a PhD student, I also had the opportunity of availing the Sandwich Fellowship for six
months in 2010, offered by the Government of France. I worked at the Unit 624 of INSERM at Marseille. During
that period, I worked with already available knock-out mice (for the protein TP53INP1) to study the effect of AP
on the mutant strain miRNome. The data for the miRNome from the micro-array from an Affymetrix platform
was further confirmed by the expression of the particular miRNAs by quantitative real time PCR using Taqman
chemistry. I also tried to see the effect of various cellular stresses like oxidative, heat, and nutrient stress in
three different cell types (primary pancreatic acinar culture, 3T3, MiaPaCa).
Currently, as an Assistant Professor at AIIMS, New Delhi, in addition to the caerulein model of acute
pancreatitis, I am also working with two surgical models of acute pancreatitis in rats. We have replicated some
of our work in the mice in this model, in order to study species specificity of a particular injurious agent and its
effect on the animal. So far, the findings of the experiments have been consistently pointing to a mechanism of
injury and cell death that is quite different from the canonical teaching of enzyme activation and autodigestion. I
am taking this work forward currently by exploring some of the death pathways in the pancreas induced by
severe acute pancreatitis. This study on cell death and consequent inflamamtion, would have direct impact on
clinical practice related to acute inflammatory conditions entailing necrotizing cell death.
B. Positions and Honors
Positions and Employment
2001-2002
Medical Intern, Government Medical College, Calicut, Kerala, India
2003-2006
Junior Resident, Department of Anatomy, Maulana Azad Medical College,
BahadurshahZafarMarg New Delhi
2006-2007
Senior Resident, Department of Anatomy, Maulana Azad Medical College, Bahadurshah Zafar
Marg New Delhi, India
2007-2009
Senior Resident, Department of Anatomy, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi,
India
2010
Sandwich Fellow, Unité 624, INSERM, Marseille, France (June to December).
2009-2012
Research Associate, Department of Gastroenterology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences,
New Delhi, India
2012-2013
Doctoral Fellow, Department of Anatomy, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi,
India
2013-2014
Assistant Professor, Department of Anatomy, Vardhman Mahavir Medical College and
Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi, India.
2014- date
Assistant Professor, Department of Anatomy, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi,
India
Other Experience and Professional Memberships
2008Reviewer, Journal of Biosciences
2008Reviewer, Clinical Anatomy
2009Reviewer, Anatomical Sciences Education
2009Faculty, Part I MRCOG course, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Northern
Zone- India.
2013Member, Governing Board, Holy Family College of Nursing, New Delhi, India
2014
Reviewer for National Medical Journal of India, BMC-Gastroenterology, Pancreas, Journal of
Anatomical Society of India
2014
Life member- Anatomical Society of India, Association of Gerontology, India.
Honors
1998
1998
2001
2014
2014
Gold Medal from Anatomical Society of India, Kerala Chapter
Raman Ezhuthassan Memorial Gold Medal in Physiology, Government Medical College,
Calicut, Kerala, India.
The Bayliss Gold Medal in Medicine, Government Medical College, Calicut, Kerala, India.
RV Tilak Gold medal for young investigators from the Association of Gerontology, India
Adjunct faculty at Jiwaji University, Gwalior for M.Sc. Neurosciences course.
C. Selected Peer-reviewed Publications
1. Ruchika Gupta, Alok Sharma, P J Mahanta, Jacob TG, S K Agarwal, T S Roy, Amit K Dinda.
Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis in Idiopathic Membranous Glomerulonephritis: A Clinicopathological and Stereological Study. Nephrol Dial Transplant (2009) 1–5
2. Sharma P, Pati HP, Mishra PC, Dinda AK, Gupta R, Sharma A, Jacob TG. Inability of
immunomorphometric assessment of angiogenesis to distinguish primary versus secondary
myelofibrosis. Anal Quant CytolHistol. 2011;33(4):236-44.
3. Jacob TG, Raghav R, Kumar A, Garg PK, Roy TS. Duration of injury correlates with necrosis in
caerulein-induced experitmental acute pancreatitis: implications for pathophysiology. Int J Exp
Pathol (95) 2014:199-208.
4. Jacob TG, Sreekumar VI, Roy TS, Garg PK. Electron-microscopic evidence of mitochondriae
containing macroautophagy in experimental acute pancreatitis: implications for cell death.
Pancreatology. 2014, 14(6):454-8.
5. TJ George. Anatomy and Medical Education. Anat Sci Ed 1:48 (2008).
6. Jacob TG. The history of teaching anatomy in India: from ancient to modern times. Anatomical
Sciences Education (6) 2013:351-358.
7. Jacob TG. Fast-track medical course and its implications. Anat. Sc Education (7) 2014:329.
8. Jacob TG, Kaul JM. Morphology of the Olfactory Fossa – a new look. J Anat Soc India (63)
2014:30-35.
9. Muthu R, Sharma S, Jacob TG, Bhardwaj DN, Nag TC, Roy TS. The human trochlear and
abducens nerves at different ages - a morphometric study. Aging Dis. 2014 18;6(1):6-16