Mallika Devi Indran-Sabanayagam

Mallika Indran, BDS, PhD, is a trained medical educator, researcher and administrator.

Before joining Saba, she taught for 31 years in the medical anatomy discipline in the MBBS program and courses conducted locally, preparing physicians for the primary exams, FRCS Part I, FDSRCS Part I, and MD Psychiatry Part I Examinations. She also served as an anatomy examiner in the FDSRCS Part 1 and MS Dental Surgery Part 1 examinations in collaboration with the Royal College of Surgeons of England. She was an external anatomy examiner to four other universities in the first professional bar examination of the MBBS degree program. Additionally, she taught in the histology and embryology laboratory classes at Glasgow University’s medical anatomy program. At the Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, St. George Campus, she taught medical students in the anatomy laboratory classes and conducted anatomy tutorials.

Dr. Indran holds a personal Chair in Anatomy awarded to her for her commendable work in the anatomy discipline and to the larger community, which includes authoring atlases and texts in histology and neuroanatomy as well as compiling a health education booklet for high school teachers. In recognition of her contribution as an educator of the dental and maxillofacial surgical professions, 1997 she was awarded the title FICCDE by the International College of Continuing Dental Education.

While serving as an anatomy professor, Dr. Indran was elected president of the College of Dentistry and Stomatology of Sri Lanka and to the Board of Study in Dental Surgery, a policy decision-making regulatory advisory body for postdoctoral maxillofacial surgical and dental training in Sri Lanka. During her three-year tenure as President of the College, she successfully initiated bilateral relationships with Japanese universities to popularize oral and facial research and maxillofacial surgical techniques. She chaired the first Japan-Sri Lanka Bilateral International Dental Conference.

Dr. Indran, in her 31-year academic career before joining Saba, organized and served as an editor of several international medical conferences and university research sessions, secretary of a medical society, and received awards for research, including pedagogical research for neuroanatomy teaching. Her research focused mainly on radiation damage to intestinal villi, salivary glands, and oral cavity in experimental and therapeutic situations, consanguinity and disease inheritance, and pedagogy for effective delivery in the anatomical discipline. She collaborated in a health systems research study jointly awarded to the Universities of Sri Lanka, Antwerp, and Connecticut. Continuing her interest in pedagogical research, she engineered a project on embryology teaching in Saba and presented the findings in a poster presentation in the 2020 Saba research sessions.

• Histology.
• Embryology.
• Neuroanatomy.
• Anatomy.
• Cytogenetics.

• British Council Assert award for Research studies the UK.
• WHO Regional Fellowships.
• European Union funded Triangle Program Grant for collaborative research with Universities of Antwerp and Connecticut.
• Commonwealth Academic Staff Scholarship.
• Best Basic Sciences Research Poster.
• Best student Research Project.
• Postdoctoral Fellowship of the Ultrastructural Radiation Biology Research Group, Queen’s University of Belfast.
• Churchill Trust Grant for cryo-scanning electron microscopy in the Donner Laboratory, Berkeley, California.

• M Indran Sabanayagam. Oral complications of head and neck irradiation therapy for carcinoma. J College of Dentistry and Stomatology of Sri Lanka. 1999; 8(1): 12-18.
• M Indran Sabanayagam, BRRN and S Wattegama. Some observations on the reactions of the oral mucous membrane during head and neck irradiation therapy for carcinoma. Sri Lanka Journal of Medicine. 1998; 7(2): 47-54.
• M Indran Sabanayagam. Effects of Irradiation on Male Mouse Submandibular Salivary Gland. An Ultrastructural study. Sri Lanka Dental Journal. 1996; 25(2): 65-72.
• M Indran, KE Carr, R StC Gilmore and FC Boyle. Mucosal changes in mouse duodenum after gamma -irradiation or reserpine treatment. J Submicrosc. Cytol. Pathol: 1991; 23 (2): 267-278.
• M Indran, KE Carr and FC Boyle. Radiation changes in mouse duodenal papilla.
• British Journal of Radiology. 1988; 61(731): 1039-1042.
• DJ Galloway, M Indran, K Carr, F Jarrett and WD George. Dietary manipulation during experimental colorectal carcinogenesis: a morphological study in the rat. International Journal of Colorectal Disease.1987; 2(4): 193-200.
• KE Carr, TL Hayes, M Indran, SJ Bastacky, G McAlinden, EJ Ainsworth and S Ellis. Morphological criteria for comparing effects of X-ray and neon ions on mouse small intestine.  Scanning Microscopy. 1987; 1(2): 799-809.
• DJ Galloway, Freda Jarrett, P Boyle, Mallika Indran, Katherine Carr, RW Owen and WD George. Morphological and Cell Kinetic effects of dietary manipulation during colorectal carcinogenesis. Gut. 1987; 28; 754-763.
• M Indran, FC Boyle and KE Carr. Simulation with pharmacological agents of radiation damage to small intestinal villi. Scanning Electron Microscopy; 1985; 3: 1165-1175.

• Experimental and therapeutic radiation effects on normal tissues of small intestine, salivary glands and oral mucosa.
• Disease inheritance pattern in consanguineous unions.
• Pedagogy for effective teaching methods.