Challenges and Solutions Against Visceral Leishmaniasis

Dr. Angamuthu Selvapandiyan, Ph.D. is a senior investigator in the Department of Molecular Medicine, Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi, India. He has been involved in teaching and research for the past 33 years. He has been teaching molecular biology & immunology courses to the visiting participants from the member countries to the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (a UNIDO organization) at New Delhi for 10 years, at FDA USA to the visiting trainees for 10 years. He has worked in the molecular and biochemical aspects in several fungi, bacteria and parasites, cloned and functionally characterized several of their genes. His current major trust areas are in the diagnostics of microbial pathogens in the clinical isolates and development of Drug/Vaccine candidates against visceral Leishmaniasis. He was instrumental in the development of one live attenuated Leishmania vaccine candidate against the fatal 'visceral leishmaniasis' disease, which iscurrently under plan for a clinical trial after its successful test as vaccine in the experimental animals. At US-FDA, as a regulatory officer, he was also involved in the reviewing of certain Biological License Applications on diagnostic devices submitted by the industries, through review committees. He has published over 70 research articles and organized several national & international conferences. He is also recipient of 2002 NIH-FARE award; 2007 'Group Recognition Award' to Chagas Disease Donor Screening Biological License Application Review Group by CBER/FDA USA; 2009 US-FDA Center Director's Scientific achievement award.

Dr. Ruchi Singh, Ph.D. is a Scientist F at ICMR-National Institute of Pathology, New Delhi, India. Her research is focused on tropical diseases, leishmaniasis and malaria. Dr. Ruchi has investigated basic and clinical aspects of leishmaniasis, making outstanding contributions in genomics, diagnostics and mechanism of drug resistance in kala-azar and post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis. Her work on drug resistance (antimony, miltefosine, paromomycin and artemisinin) in leishmaniasis yielded new insights into mechanisms operative in clinical isolates. She has authored more than 60 research articles and several book chapters. She has been at the forefront of clinical research in visceral leishmaniasis. She has received several prestigious national and international awards, including ICMR Awards: Shakuntala Amirchand (Best published work-2006) and Maj Gen Saheb Singh Sokhey (Communicable diseases-2015) award and UNESCO L'Oréal FWIS fellowship for Asia-Pacific-2006. She is Associate Editor at Frontiers in Epidemiology.

Dr. Niti Puri, Ph.D., joined School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi as Assistant Professor in Immunology in May, 2008, after Post-doctoral experience in India at JNU and National Institute of Immunology, Delhi and as a Fogarty Fellow and Visiting Fellow Employee at National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA. Her extensive research in Cellular and Molecular Immunology is focused on studying the molecular mechanisms of innate immune cell effector mechanisms during infectious and non-infectious diseases with the intent to find novel therapeutics. Her research has revealed the molecular mechanisms, and novel effector responses involving mast cells during infectious diseases like Leishmaniasis, Tuberculosis, Candidiasis and non-infectious inflammatory disease like an allergic response, anemia and cancer. Her studies of mast cell interactions with intracellular pathogens like Leishmania have provided evidence for a very important direct role for mast cells in clearance of these pathogens by both intracellular and extracellular mechanisms. These studies highlight the importance of mast cells in these infectious disease outcomes and therapeutic strategy development. She has carried out several highly competitive externally funded research projects, and also set up productive collaborations with other researchers nationally and internationally. She has published more than 50 research articles in high impact peer reviewed international journals, several book chapters and presented her work in national and international conferences. She has been a reviewer for various national and international journals and extramural projects. She has designed several research protocols for studying various aspects of mammalian immune system and host-pathogen interactions in vitro and in vivo. She also teaches basic and advanced Immunology to post graduate and higher-level students at JNU, as guest lecturer at South Campus, DU, and also earlier at NIH, USA. She has been a member of the IBSC, Animal House Advisory Committee, and the Academic Council of JNU, and the core faculty-in-charge for the Flowcytometry facility and M.Sc. Laboratory at SLS, JNU. She is also currently part of Institutional Animal Ethics Committee at South Asian University, and member of Research Advisory Committee for PhD students at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, National Institute of Immunology, and Delhi Technological University, New Delhi. She has supervised so far 14 PhD thesis.

Dr. Nirmal Kumar Ganguly, M.D., Ph.D. is a Former Director of the Indian Council of Medical Research, the National Academy of Medical Sciences and the National Institute of Biologicals. He is a microbiologist and Chairman of the Advisory Committee to the Minister of Health on COVID-19. He is also the Chairman of the Research Council of the Institute of Advanced Virology, National Academy of Medical Sciences, Chairman, Indian Pharmacopeia Commission, Expert Committee of the National Institute of Biologicals guiding R&D activities and President, Immunology Foundation of India. Prof. Ganguly is at present the Senior Scientific Advisor, Global Health Strategies,New Delhi and President, Apollo Hospitals Educational and Research Foundation. He is Emeritus Professor and Director, PGIMER, Chandigarh. He is on the Advisory Board of NIH Fogarty International Center, the Health Vaccine Center, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Advisory Board for Global Health, the Public Health Advisory Board of the University of California (UCLA). He is a Senior Scientific Advisor to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and a Fellow of Imperial College and the Royal College of Pathologists and the Tropical School, London, and on the Board of the Public Health Innovative Fund, the Canada Innovative Fund, and Grand Challenges, Canada. Prof. Ganguly is Chairman of the Advisory Committee for Health Research of the World Health Organization-SEARO, the International Vaccine Institute Cholera Board (CHOVI), United Nations Children's Fund SAG TDR. He has published more than 775 research papers and supervised or co-supervised 130 Ph.D. candidate dissertations and more than 20 book chapters. Prof. Ganguly has been honored with the 7 International and 113 National awards along with the prestigious ''Padma Bhushan'' Award in the field of "Medicine" for the year 2008.