Sharmila Anandasabapathy, M.D. is a Professor of Medicine in Gastroenterology and Vice President, Global Health at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. In her current role, she oversees Baylor’s global programs and affiliations. The Baylor Global Innovation Center seeks to develop novel, environmentally appropriate technologies and approaches to addressing global disease burden. This includes the development and validation of innovative mobile and portable solutions for clinical care, and cancer screening; point-of care diagnostic technologies, and portable, low-cost devices for the diagnosis and management of chronic, non-communicable diseases worldwide.

An advanced gastrointestinal endoscopist by training, Dr. Anandasabapathy’s research focus involves the development and validation of novel technologies for diagnosis of early gastrointestinal cancer. She is currently Principal Investigator on three grants funded by the National Institutes of Health and National Cancer Institute, and eight clinical trials focused on the development of low-cost, battery-operated, portable technologies for the endoscopic diagnosis of esophageal, gastric and colon cancers. These trials are currently being conducted in the United States, Africa, China, Mexico and Honduras. In addition, she and her group are involved in several projects which seek to develop innovative technological approaches to addressing cancer and other chronic diseases in low-resource areas, such as West Africa (The Gambia), India, China and Central America. These involve the development of tablet-based reporting and documentation platforms, sedation/anesthesia and procedure-based training modules, and environmentally appropriate innovations (battery-operated technologies, etc.). These partnerships involve active, extensive collaborations with other academic centers (Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Rice University, Harvard University), NGOs, and Foundations.