- Initiative
launched to coincide with World Mental Health Day
- The
Grey Ribbon campaign to generate awareness about mental illness and ask people
to join the cause to extend support to those in need
- BipashaBasu
joins in support with Aman Iqbal, wears the Grey Ribbon
New Delhi, October 9, 2019: India,
according to the World Health Organization (WHO), has one of the largest
population suffering from one form of mental illness or the other. The report
pegs that 6.5 per cent of Indians suffer from some form of the serious mental
disorder, with no discernible rural-urban differences.
In India
the situation is a cause of worry with low awareness about the subject, social
stigma attached to it and lack of support from the society.While there is much
sympathy for mental health sufferers, stigmatization is widespread.
To raise
awareness about the issue, and garner support for the large population
suffering, Aman Iqbal, a healthcare visionary and founder of Vantage Enterprise,
has announced “IAmHere4You” movement. This movement is aimed at addressing the
stigma that is attached with the people with mental illness, spread the
positive word of mouth through the army of individuals who will come forth to
support the cause, and ultimately create space in the society for an open
dialogue on mental health and its reception in a positive manner.
Announcing
the ‘#IAmHere4You’ movement, Aman Iqbal said, “Due to the stigma associated with mental illness, a lack of awareness,
and limited access to professional help, only 10-12% of these sufferers seek
help. We want to change this. Our movement ‘#IAmHere4You’ will drive support
for the mental health sufferers from fellow Indians. Awareness is the first
step in this direction and thus the ‘Grey Ribbon’ campaign will attract people
through social media platforms where they will wear the Grey Ribbon as a mark
of acknowledgement, and pledge their support.”
At just
6,000 psychiatrists for 1.35 billion people, India has a very low ratio of
mental health experts. The ‘#IAmHere4You’ movement stands for fighting stigma
attached with Mental Health and create torch bearers to guide the way for those
in need of support. The movement has found Bollywood actress BipashaBasu as an
early supporter for the cause.
Wearing
the Grey Ribbon and endorsing the ‘#IAmHere4You’ movement, BipashaBasu said,
“Mental Health remains the most neglected topic. But not anymore, Interventions
in the form of medicine, psychological and social help, can make a huge
difference. On the World Mental Health Day, I stand with every Indian suffering
with #MentalIllness. To show my support, I will wear this grey ribbon as a
testament to their individual strength and resilience. I am joining #iamhere4You campaign with Aman Iqbal and
will wear this grey ribbon to support the cause.”
The
‘#IAmHere4You’ movement aims to address the serious mental health crisis India
is suffering from, with an estimated 56 million people suffering from
depression and 38 million from anxiety disorders, according to WHO.
‘I hope the positive word on our movement
spreads ad reached everyone who needs to hear and know it. May this be the end
of the thought where people talk about metal health. I wish this movement to
contribute to the health index of our country, for a healthy nation is built of
people with healthy minds, added Aman Iqbal.
About Aman Iqbal
and Vantage Enterprise
Aman is the Founder
of Vantage Enterprise, a movement for automating healthcare industry using
data. Vantage Enterprise is focused on leveraging human health data to streamline
the healthcare industry. Through its
fund, IQGEN, Vantage Enterprise aims to invest in technology-driven healthcare
companies in India and other Asian nations.
In his professional
career spanning over a decade, Aman has had diverse working experience from
academia, to mid-cap biotech to public-private research organization funded by
all major Pharma companies and numerous healthcare based startups. He has won
many accolades including Primer Minister’s Top 40 under 40 emerging
entrepreneurs of Canada to NextFounders, and member of the Executive Club of
Canada.
Aman also sits on the
board of RadiomicsAI (winner of world's top 20 companies in the Medical AI
space by Red Herring group). Aman got his PhD in Chemical Biology at the ripe
age of 24 from University of Oxford where he was a Wellcome trust fellow making
him the youngest PhD in Chemistry from South Asia.
Dr. Aman Iqbal
Scientist | Mentor |
Futurist
Follow
him on : LinkedIn | Twitter
Dr.
Aman Iqbal is a technology and healthcare visionary, who believes in the power
of data and its myriad uses in automating the healthcare industry. A PhD in Chemical
Biology from University of Oxford (and also a Wellcome trust fellow making him
the youngest PhD in Chemistry from South Asia), Aman has done some extensive
research and work in streamlining health data, understand it, and make it
consumable by the healthcare industry.
Read his piece on AI in
healthcare here.
During his
interface with students at your prestigious institute, he would like to shed
some light on the topic that is very close to his heart – Epigenetics.
Epigenetics is a field of science that studies the dynamic changes to the human
genome as we live and age. It studies the effect of environment on our health.
In the last decade, scientific community globally has been able to map all post
genomic modifications (methylation, acetylation) and linking the pattern of
post-genomic modifications to human diseases.
Dr. Aman
has more than decade of experience in genomic, epigenomic and drug discovery
R&D. He is looking to bring the science and technology behind Epigenetics
for public health and primarily to drive a preventive healthcare system
accessible and affordable to all.
Read his views on
Accessibility in Healthcare here.
In
his professional career spanning over a decade, Aman has had diverse working
experience from academia, to mid-cap biotech to public-private research
organization funded by all major Pharma companies and numerous healthcare based
startups. His passion for pushing the boundaries of human understanding of
science and merging disciplines in the quest of finding solutions to some of
the most challenging problems faced by the healthcare industry has won him many
accolades including Primer Minister’s Top 40 under 40 emerging entrepreneurs of
Canada to NextFounders, member of the Executive Club of Canada, and Grand Prize
by J&J at BiopharmAmerica Conference for best technology and pitch.
Aman
is also the Founder of Vantage Enterprise, a movement for automating healthcare
industry using data. Through its fund, IQGEN, Vantage Enterprise aims to invest
in technology-driven healthcare companies in India and other Asian nation
Aman has co-founded
various companies in the field of healthcare technology driving one larger
objective to another. Below are his initiations, with the company’s field of
work highlighted:
• DigiMed Inc.
(early forays into digital medicine)
•
Cosmic Discoveries (Contract biotech
R&D firm using machine learning for streamlining Pharmaceutical API
R&D)
• Ampkyne
(repurposing a Phase-1 metabolic drug for mitochondrial diseases)
• GreyWolf
Animal health (a next generation animal health company)
• Proteorex
therapeutics (drugging the undruggable genome)
• IQGEN
(Healthcare Corporation on a mission to create Unicorns in Asia)
Aman also sits on the
board of RadiomicsAI (winner of world's top 20 companies in the Medical AI
space by Red Herring group).
Attached with this profile is a list
of research papers and articles by Aman Iqbal on Epigenetics.
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