Vivek Baliga

University of Leeds Ph.D. candidate Dr. Vivek Baliga has long pursued athletic activities in addition to his education. Before attending university in India, he played basketball in school and became a champion in the sport of badminton. Dr. Vivek Baliga later joined the basketball team at Manipal Academy of Higher Education, from which he received his Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) in 2000. The team won two championships during the years he played on it. Dr. Baliga now plays badminton at the University of Leeds and participates in annual charity runs across the United Kingdom.

As a researcher, Dr. Vivek Baliga focuses primarily on the vascular system. He has produced studies for journals published by the American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association, the British Cardiovascular Society, and other groups. In their study entitled "Endothelial Cell Insulin Sensitivity and Nitric Oxide Bioavailability Are Regulated by Insulin-Like Growth Factor-1 and Insulin Receptor Levels," Dr. Baliga and several other researchers discovered that by manipulating certain hormones, they could change the bioavailability of nitric oxide, which helps repair damage to blood vessels.

In another recent effort, conducted in 2011 with several of the same researchers and entitled "Insulin Resistance Impairs Circulating Angiogenic Progenitor Cell Function and Delays Endothelial Regeneration," Dr. Vivek Baliga followed up on his previous discoveries. He and his coauthors examined the effects of insulin resistance on repairs to the lining of blood vessels (the endothelium) in mice after injury. They were able to determine that insulin resistance delays endothelial repair and that blood infusions from animals that were not insulin resistant would normalize the process.