Dr. Pramod Kumar

BIOS: I have experience in development of molecular diagnostics for selected bacterial pathogens (Bacillus anthracis, Vibrio cholerae, Staphylococcus sps etc.) and
viral pathogens (HAV, HBV, HCV, HEV and SARS-CoV-2). During my research tenure (2006 to 2020), actively participated in various outbreaks of cholera, anthrax, COVID-19, viral hepatitis and food poisoning in India. Our remarkable study revealed a novel allelic form of cholera toxin in V. cholerae O1 strains causing a devastating cholera epidemic in Odisha in 2007 (Kumar et al., 2009). These isolates rose in fame as Haitian cholera toxin (HCT) harbouring strain when they caused most devastating epidemic in Haiti in 2010. These strains have been positively selected and have spread globally and have been associated with greater mortality, and spread throughout India and associated with higher mortality (Kumar et al., 2014 & 2017). Outer-membrane-proteins OmpU/T split associated with altered drug-resistance; hyper-virulence in epidemic strains of V. cholerae (Kumar et al., 2019). Contributed in high-throughput diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 and viral genomics during the early phase of COVID-19 pandemic in India (Kumar et al., 2020; Singh et al., 2020)