Biography

I trained as a paediatrician and after practicing for a few years,transitioned to become a physicianscientist.I have been doing clinical research for more than a decade and lead my research programme at THSTI. In my initial years as a researcher at AIIMS-New Delhi, I was involved with the conduct of hypothesis driven studies that evaluated interventions directed at several commonly occurring infections in children in India. I was groomed in the skills required for conducting rigorous and meaningful research. In 2010, I joined Translational Health Science and Technology Institute as a physician-scientist.I have been associated with several large multi-centre clinical trials using zinc for treatment of various childhood illnesses, surveillance for H-influenzae B in tertiary hospitals, establishing a large cohort of pregnant women to find solutions for adverse pregnancy outcomes, and observational studies to understand the development and maturation of the neonatal immune system. My primary research
interest is finding solutions for neonatal and early life morbidity and mortality.I am the PI for a large multi-country multi-centre clinical trial to measure the efficacy of adjunct zinc for the treatmen of young infant sepsis and co-PI on another large multi-country multi-site clinical trial to test the efficacy of immediate continuous KMC in reducing neonatal mortality.

I have been instrumentalin establishing a large longitudinal cohort of pregnant women for risk stratification of the women with adverse outcomes and am overseeing the conduct including the data management of the cohort. I have demonstrated my ability to establish, maintain and follow population and hospital cohorts with high quality data. My core expertise lies in design, conduct and analysis of hypothesis driven multicentre hospital based clinical studies. I have the competence to build and lead multisite, multidisciplinary research teams that are capable of performing research to the most exacting standards of good clinical and ethical practices and to use risk and decision science for clinical medicine and public health.

I have authored many publications including one in Lancet and have co-authored chapters in text books. I have been credited with the development of revised Consensus guidelines for the management and treatment of diarrhoea in children for NRHM (2006 & 2007)as member of National Indian Academy of Paediatrics (IAP) and Management of Severe Acute Malnutrition (2006).

Data Management Centre (DMC): Instrumental in establishing the data management centre (DMC) at the Paediatric Biology Centre (PBC) of THSTI and lead the data management for all clinical studies being conducted and coordinated by PBC.

Supported in establishing the Institutional Ethics Committee for Human Research at THSTI and in the registration of the IEC with CDSCO. Was a member secretary for the THSTI IEC for the first few years.

Teaching: Coordinate the coursework on ‘Quantitative Methods in Research’ and ‘Clinical Trials’ for PhD students at THSTI. I am also a faculty for CDSA conducted workshops on Good Clinical Practice and Ethics in Biomedical Research

Clinical Operations at Clinical Development Services Agency (CDSA): Since 2017, I have an additional responsibility of CDSA operations. In this short span, CDSA has been awarded one collaborative grant with multiple interdisciplinary institutions and a consultancy for clinical trial regulatory and data safety advise. I am also a part of a number of key efforts (clinical trials toolkit, integrated electronic research application platform, online e-courses) to enhance the Indian clinical research ecosystem.