Dr. Priya Kalra wins Gold medal on World TB Day Research Symposium
On 21-22nd March 2018, AIIMS organized a ‘World TB Day Symposium’. Every year March 24th is celebrated as World TB day to commemorate the discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in 1882 as the TB causing bacterium. The theme of this year's World TB Day was: “Wanted: Leaders for a TB-free world. You can make history. End TB.” This research symposium was well attended and represented by the scientists and researchers from various institutes in the NCR region, and dignitaries including Mr. Sanjeev Kumar, Additional Secretary of Health, GOI; Mrs. Meenakshi Lekhi, Member Parliament and Dr. Bindu Dey, Secretary, Technology Development Board, GOI. The speakers highlighted the challenges to TB control in India and emphasized upon the urgency of developing new anti-TB drugs. In this context, a jury comprised of TB experts awarded Dr. Priya Kalra from Department of Biotechnology, AIIMS with the prestigious Dr. M.H. Ahuja Gold medal for standing first in the poster presentation event. Dr. Kalra did her Ph.D. with Dr. H. Krishna Prasad and Dr. Jaya S. Tyagi (AIIMS, New Delhi) in collaboration with Dr. Tarun K. Sharma (THSTI, Faridabad) and Dr. Amit Kumar (IIT, Indore). The award-winning work from Priya focused on the development of a novel aptamer-based anti-tuberculosis therapeutics titled as "G-quadruplex forming DNA aptamers inhibit DNA-binding function of HupB (Rv2986c) and Mycobacterium tuberculosis entry into host cells".
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