Singapore, April 7, 2008: Prof Sibte Hasan Zaidi, former Director, Indian Institute of Toxicology Research (formerly Industrial Toxicology Research Centre (ITRC), Lucknow passed away on April 5, 2008 at New York. He was 90 years old and was not keeping good health for the past few years.

 

Prof Zaidi, a graduate of King George Medical College in Lucknow, established India's first toxicology research institute, the Industrial Toxicology Research Centre in 1965  under the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) and was its Director till 1978. Before moving to ITRC, he was a deputy director and in charge of Experimental Medicine Division at the Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow .He also served as a director of the Indian Institute of Biochemistry and Experimental Medicine, Calcutta before his retirement.

 

Prof Zaidi was an outstanding environmental and industrial toxicologist of India and received several national awards including the Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar Award and Padmashri. He was the Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists, London and the Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. He was a member of the WHO’s Expert Advisory Panel on Occupational Health.

 

He leaves behind his son, Dr Mone Zaidi, Professor of Medicine and Endocrinology, Mount Sinai Medical School, New York. The Indian Institute of Toxicology Research has been organizing an annual S.H. Zaidi oration for the past eleven years to acknowledge the contributions of Dr Zaidi.