Prof. Rama Chaudhry

Dean (Research)

Head, Department of Microbiology,

All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi

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Prof. Chaudhry has done her MBBS from LHMC and MD from AIIMS, New Delhi. Presently she is working as a Dean (Research), Professor and Head in the Department of Microbiology at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi. She has an experience of over 35 years in the field of academics and medical-research to her credit. She has received many honors and memberships from various national and international scientific organizations. She has been among the research advisory and project review committees of national funding agency such as the DBT, CSIR and ICMR. Her research and international collaborations, has resulted in over 205 scientific publications in various journals of international repute including Nature, BMJ, EID, JCM, Lancet, TMID, JCV etc.  She has contributed several book chapters and edited books. 

 

Major Research Thrust Areas:

 

• Anaerobic Bacteriology -Molecular characterization and diagnostics for anaerobic-pathogens including C. botulinum and C. difficile.
• Special Bacterial Pathogens–Diagnosis and characterization of special pathogens including Mycoplasma, Legionella, Rickettsia, Leptospira, Bartonella and Lyme disease
• Human Microbiome – Metagenomic characterization and profiling of human microbiota to assess the microbial and metabolic markers for different diseases and host microbe interactions including gut colonization and immunomodulation.
• Probiotics– Application of probiotics for human health and development of indigenous probiotics
• Antimicrobial Resistance: Antibiotic susceptibility of clinical and environmental isolates including anaerobic bacterial pathogens
• Bacteriophages: Isolation and characterization of bacteriophages against drug resistant bacteria

 

Key Research Contributions:

 

Prof Chaudhry is in-charge of the Anaerobic-bacteriology, Special Bacterial Pathogen Laboratory and Metagenomics Laboratory at AIIMS that caters to the diagnostics needs as a nodal center for many teaching and non-teaching hospitals in the country.  

Areas of her research include- Anaerobic bacteriology, Infectious Diseases, Drug resistant enteric infections in India, Human microbiome, Metagenomics bacteriophage and Probiotics. Her research is also focussed on emerging and re-emerging vector borne diseases (Rickettsial diseases, Lyme, Ehrlichia and Anaplasma) and potential use of bacteriophage as biocontrol agent against MDR pathogens contaminated surfaces. During the COVID pandemic, she has also worked to explore the role of atypical bacterial pathogens in the causing superadded infections in COVID patients and their role in the mortality and morbidity of the COVID patients. 

Prof. Chaudhry conducted many conferences, workshops and CMEs in the field of anaerobic bacteriology, mycoplasma, probiotics and COVID-19. As the ASM International Ambassador to India she created awareness among microbiologists and clinicians and trained manpower for these specialized diagnostics even in small laboratory settings.

 

1. Anaerobic bacteriology: Dr. Chaudhry is in-charge of anaerobic-lab in the department of Microbiology, which serves as a referral lab for several teaching and non-teaching hospitals in the country. This lab is responsible for its diagnostics catering via its routine culture and drug susceptibility testings, supply / identification of anaerobic strains on demand, and also provides hands on training programs for summer-trainees. The active research in this area involves studies pertaining molecular characterisation and diagnostics for anaerobic-pathogens w.r.t. C. botulinum and C. difficile. An outbreak of suspected C. butyricum botulism in India was investigated (Emerg. Infect. Dis., 1998; 4(3): 506-7) by applying these recent techniques. In a preliminary study of C. difficile infection at AIIMS, a tertiary care hospital, the prevalence of infection has been found to be 15%.

• Enteric pathogens: Prof. Chaudhry’s research on human salmonellosis is a significant contribution. Early research work revealed the emergence of Salmonella Paratyphi-A strains with unusual resistance to quinolones causing enteric fever treatment failures in New Delhi.  An outbreak by resistant S. Paratyphi-A was also investigated in this region. Some of her research work on Salmonella, published in CDC and ASM journals have been cited in renowned medical textbooks- Topley& Wilson’s Molecular Medical Microbiology, Konemans’ Diagnostics Microbiology and Mandell etc.

 

1. 2.         Special Bacterial Pathogens

• Mycoplasma pneumoniae: In an ICMR-funded project, comparative evaluation of available diagnostic tests for M. pneumoniae were carried out. Since most of the kits are too expensive and usually imported, an effort was made to develop our own indigenous tests by standardizing ELISA using self-prepared antigens (a 170 kD-virulence protein-P1) while comparing it with other techniques. The laboratory is equipped for M. pneumoniae diagnosis by culture, antigen detection and PCR. She has contributed significant work on epidemiology and expression studies of immunodominant epitopes of P1, P30, P116 gene of Mycoplasma pneumoniae to develop an in-house rapid point of care test.
• Legionella pneumophila: She has reported the role of Legionella in the atypical pneumonia and isolated it from the environment for the first time from India. The environmental isolates showed high percentage of the pathogenicity loci which indicate disease-causing Legionella in hospital environment. As a countermeasure, point of use filters was installed to the drinking water taps.  Antibiotic susceptibility testing, virulence gene detection, and genotyping were carried out in environmental Legionella.  The genetic analysis of environmental Legionella isolates showed diversity. 
• Lyme disease, Rickettsia and Bartonella: Prof. Chaudhry is working on Lyme disease research to advance the scientific knowledge and laboratory diagnosis of this emerging tick-borne infection in India.  This is the only laboratory equipped with Standard Two-tiered testing serology and various molecular techniques to diagnose Lyme disease and other co-infections in India which will help to treat this infection in its early stages. Prof. Chaudhry is conducting a Multicenter extramural research grant supported from ICMR to investigate the clinical and epidemiological features of Lyme disease in India.
• Antimicrobial Resistance: Antibiotic susceptibility of clinical and environmental isolates including anaerobic bacterial pathogens

 

1. Metagenmics:

• Probiotics and Microbiome: As a pioneer in the field of probiotics from India, she collaborated with researchers from University of Maryland and contributed in NIH, USA sponsored studies published in ‘Nature 2017’. Prof. Chaudhry also conducted a study on gut microbiota in healthy Indian subjects, patient of IBD and colon cancer.

1. Bacteriophages: Bacteriophages are considered as natural predators of bacteria. Prof. Chaudhry is working on Isolation and characterization of bacteriophages against drug resistant bacteria including A. baumannii, P. aeruginosa, K. pneumoniae, E coli and S. aureus from the river Ganga and other environmental samples.

 

 

Honors and Awards

 

1. ASM International Ambassador to India by American Society for Microbiology, USA, 2016-2021.
2. Prestigious ‘Atal Swasthya Bhushan Samman 2019’ by Honorable Lok Sabha Speaker, Parliament of India.
3. IAMM Endowment Lecture Award 2014 by Indian Association of Medical Microbiologist (IAMM).
   1. Dr R Sengupta and Dr A.M. Saoji Memorial Prize Gold Medal- 2009 for best paper in Immunology in XXXIII National Conference of Indian Association of Medical Microbiologists held in JSS Medical College, Mysore.
   2. Dr. S.S. Kelkar Memorial Gold Medal Award twice in 2017 & 2002 by Indian association of medical microbiologist for an outstanding scientific work accomplished entitled “Expression and immunological characterization of the carboxy-terminal region of the P1 adhesin protein of Mycoplasma pneumoniae.” (2002)

 

Best publications

 

1. Vinayaraj EV, Gupta N, Sreenath K, Thakur CK, Gulati S, Anand V, Tripathi M, Bhatia R, Vibha D, Dash D, Soneja M, Kumar U, Padma MV, Chaudhry R. Clinical and laboratory evidence of Lyme disease in North India, 2016-2019.Travel Med Infect Dis. 2021 Jun 30;43:102134. doi: 10.1016/j.tmaid.2021.102134.IF 6.2

1. Sreenath K, Batra P, Vinayaraj EV, Bhatia R, SaiKiran K, Singh V, Singh S, Verma N, Singh UB, Mohan A, Bhatnagar S, Trikha A, Guleria R, Chaudhry R. Coinfections with Other Respiratory Pathogens among Patients with COVID-19.MicrobiolSpectr. 2021 Jul 21: e0016321. doi: 10.1128/Spectrum.00163-21.IF 6.62

3. Chaudhry R, Sreenath K, Arvind V, Vinayaraj EV, Tanu S. Legionella pneumophila Serogroup 1 in the Water Facilities of a Tertiary Healthcare Center, India. Emerg Infect Dis. 2017 Nov; 23(11):1924-1925. IF 6.9
4. Pinaki Panigrahi, Sailajanandan Parida, Nimai C. Nanda, RadhanathSatpathy, Lingaraj Pradhan, Dinesh S. Chandel, Lorena Baccaglini, Arjit Mohapatra, Subhranshu S. Mohapatra, Pravas R. Misra, Rama Chaudhry, Hegang H. Chen, Judith A. Johnson, J. Glenn Morris Jr, Nigel Paneth & Ira H. Gewolb (2017): A randomized synbiotic trial to prevent sepsis among infants in rural India: Nature 548, 407–412.IF 40.1
5. Chaudhry R, Lall SB, Mishra B, Dhawan B. A foodborne outbreak of organophosphate poisoning. British Medical Journal.1998 Jul 25; 317(7153):268-9. IF19.9