Dr. Pulukool Sandhya is a senior rheumatologist at Narayana Health City, Bengaluru, and a clinician-researcher deeply interested in Sjögren’s disease. Her research has provided insights into clinical demographics, determinants of diagnosis, molecular markers, genomics, and epidemiology of Sjogren’s syndrome in India, highlighting the unique differences in Sjogren’s disease in Asia vis-a-vis Western populations.
She has been part of national and international research initiatives, including Sjogren’s International Big Data Consortium, the EULAR-Sjögren Syndrome Task Force Group, the International Task Force on nomenclature of Sjögren’s disease, and OMERACT Sjogren’s Working Group. She is the co-convenor of the Asia Pacific League of Associations for Rheumatology (APLAR) Special Interest Group on Sjogren’s Syndrome and the Indian Rheumatology Association (IRA) Special Interest Group on Sjogren’s Syndrome. She is also the Co-convenor of Asia-Pacific League Against Rheumatism & Indian Rheumatology Association Special Interest Group on Sjogren’s Disease, and she led the efforts to create the ongoing Indian Sjogren’s Disease Registry – a multi-institutional initiative which has recruited over 800 patients so far.
She has authored over 50 publications in international peer-reviewed journals and 8 book chapters. She has been a reviewer for many journals and serves as associate editor for Oxford Rheumatology.
Dr. Sandhya did her undergraduate medical education at Calicut Medical College, post-graduation in Medicine at JIPMER Puducherry, and fellowship in Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology at the Christian Medical College, Vellore. She was previously an Associate Professor at the Christian Medical College, Vellore, and was associated with St Stephens Hospital, Delhi. She is also a faculty member for the BMJ module on primary care rheumatology.
