Dr B K Das

Dr. Bimal Kumar Das, MD

  Professor

Diagnostic services

Responsibility inlcude routine diagnsotic bacteriology for patients  attending AIIMS hopsital. Special interest in molecular diagnsotic assays  including molecular epidemiology of  invasive bacterial infections namely Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae and Nesseria meningitidis

Research interest

1.    Although invasive Haemophilus influenzae type b disease ( Hib) has declined in the west due to extensive use of the Hib conjugate vaccines, invasive Hib disease remains a major public health issue  for countries like India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and  Nepal  in the Indian subcontinet. A similar situation exist in the African countries. Serotype b, most common invasive Haemophilus influenzae, has been shown to be a closely knit group of orgainsm with little diversity within. However, carriage of serotype b in the throat of healthy children ( young infnat as well as older children) raises the issue of some differences in the pathogenic potential of these so called commensal serotype b strains.  Our MLST analysis clearly shows existence of two  distinct evolutinary lineages among serotype b isolates.

   

   Multi Locus Sequencing Typing clearly delineate existence two evolutionarily different sero type b  Haemophilus influenzae.

2. Pneumococcal DNA vaccine:DNA vaccine approach is extremely enticing, as it administers only desired antigen that has the ability to induce protective and neutralizing immune response. Tagging of a leading sequence  ( secretory peptide ) allows the intracellulaly expressed antigen to be expelled outside. This lead to induction of Th2 of immune response ( along with Th1 response). At best, this approach induces both humoral as well as CMI response to DNA vaccine which may be necessary for induction of protection for invasive pneumcoccal  disease.

   

   Immunofluorescence images for Mply-pNK expression in 293-T cells to show  in vitro expression of recombinant pneumolysin ( ply ) protein from Mply-pNK ( pneumolysin  DNA construct in the backbone of pNK vector)

    
3. Molecular tracking of N. meningitidis  strains isolated from outbreaks of meningococcal meningitis including characterization of outer membrane proteins profiles,  FetA antigen and multilocus sequence typing.

   Recent Publication

   1.    KK Saikia, R Bewal, D Bansal, A Kapil, S Sood, NK Arora, BK Das. Multi locus sequence type comparison of invasive and commensal Haemophilus infl uenzae isolates from Delhi. Indian Journal of Medical Microbiology, 2011: 29(2): 158-160.
   2.    Kandarpa Kumar Saikia, Bimal Kumar Das, Arti Kapil, Narendra Kumar Arora and Seema Sood. Characterization of nasopharyngeal isolates of  Haemophilus influenzae  from Delhi : Identification of new sequence types. Indian Journal of Medical Research. Indian J Med Res. 2011 ( Accepted for publication).
   3.   Bacteria in cancer therapy: a novel experimental strategy. S Patyar, R Joshi, DS Prasad Byrav, A Prakash, B Medhi and Das BK . Journal        of Biomedical Science 2010, 17:21.
   4.  Chakrabarti P, Das BK, Kapil A. Rapid diagnosis of acute bacterial meningitis by 16S rDNA based PCR. Indian Journal of Medical Research. Indian J Med Res. 2009 Feb;129(2):182-8