New Professor at UD

A visiting professor from India has arrived in Debrecen recently to be the new head of the Department of Ayurveda.

Ms. Asmita Wele is going to participate in research projects conducted currently at the University of Debrecen, offer academic courses, and make arrangements for the foundation of the future European Institute of Ayurvedic Sciences.

Asmita Wele is a professor at Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University in Pune, India, and she is also the Head of the Institute of Ayurveda Pharmacology there. She has worked as a practitioner and instructor for more than 25 years, researching symptoms and other phenomena related to cancer, asthma, Alzheimer’s disease, and various aspects of neuropsychology. In fact, these are exactly the fields that are going to be the primary areas of connection for her with research teams working at the University of Debrecen in the upcoming 12-month period.

In Debrecen, she is going to take the position of Head of the Department of Ayurveda, formerly filled by Professor Madhaw Singh Baghel, also from India, who is to retire at the end of his posting period in December 2015.

Commissioned by the US-based National Institute of Health, Professor Wele has taken an active part in international AIDS research, exploring the immune system boosting effects of traditional Indian Ayurvedic medicine in the organisms of patients with HIV. She is a regular contributor to international professional periodicals, and she has lectured extensively across Europe, Asia, and Africa.

“I have spent only a few days in Debrecen so far but my first impressions are excellent. It seems to me that the multidisciplinary system the University of Debrecen is based upon is pretty close to the holistic approach of Ayurveda. The unity of programs offered here in medicine and pharmacy, in unison with natural, agricultural, and social sciences, makes it possible to carry out complex and comprehensive research projects which, as I see, can efficiently integrate parts of the Indian traditional and natural system of treatments dating back to more than five thousand years ago,” said Ms. Asmita Wele on Wednesday.

The new guest professor is going to teach an optional introductory course in Ayurveda in English to students of medicine, pharmacy, and dentistry at the University of Debrecen as of next February. In addition to her scholastic responsibilities in teaching and research, she is also going to be busy preparing the establishment of the future European Institute of Ayurvedic Sciences, making sure that the European academic center of traditional Indian healing should be located in Debrecen.

Press Office