Sites - India
Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences
Institute:
Located in Sevagram India, the Mahatma Gandhi Institute is the first medical research center focused on rural health. It boasts a 650-bed hospital with state-of-the-art facilities, a post-graduate training program in biomedical and clinical science, and medical training for 65 students each year, through an affiliation with the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences in Nasik. Facilities include an advanced Bioinformatics Centre (part of the Jamnalal Bajaj Tropical Disease Research Centre) with computing clusters, software, and server for bioinformatics and medical informatics. This infrastructure, supported by the Indian Department of Biotechnology, benefits from a local area network providing high-speed internet connectivity. MGIMS also supports biochemistry and microbiology laboratories equipped with FPLC, ELISA, cryopreservation, PCR, spectrophotometry, chromatography, electrophoresis, and other advanced technology. The faculty at MGIMS has produced a number of patented technologies, and current laboratory investigators include development of a DNA vaccine for lymphatic filariasis, identification of filariasis antigens for diagnostic kits, and biochemical characterization of TB pathogenic proteins for rapid clinical detection and monitoring.
Host Investigator:
Dr. SP Kalantri
UC Berkeley Investigators:
Dr. Arthur L. Reingold is a Professor of Epidemiology and Associate Director of the Center for Global PublicHealth, in the School of Public Health. Dr Reingold's research has focused for the past 30 years on the prevention and control of infectious diseases in the US and in developing countries in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. He has studied and continues to study a wide range of bacterial and viral infections, including bacterial meningitis, pneumonia and other respiratory infections, influenza, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS. Reingold's group is particularly interested in vaccines and their effectiveness and impact, as well as in other prevention and control strategies. He currently directs the CDC-funded California Emerging Infections Program, which studies a variety of infectious diseases in the US setting, and has collaborations with current and former students in Brazil, Peru, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and India relating to encephalitis, leptospirosis, tuberculosis, malaria, HIV/AIDS, STIs, and bacterial vaginosis.
Students working with Dr. Reingold will have the opportunity to conduct research in the SF Bay area in conjunction with the California Emerging Infections Program, on issues such as the effectiveness of the current approach to preventing early onset group B streptococcal infections in infants; the impact of the introduction of conjugate pneumococcal vaccine on the epidemiology of pneumococcal infections; the effectiveness of influenza vaccine in infants and the elderly; the risk factors for various foodborne infectious diseases; and the impact of introducing HPV vaccine into the immunization schedule. Overseas, students may work in India on one of three projects: examining the risk factors for bacterial vaginosis, the impediments to introducing male circumcision, and the descriptive epidemiologic features and etiologies of viral encephalitis.
Dr. Lee Riley is a Professor of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases in the School of Public Health. The Riley group focuses on three general areas: I) basic biology of infectious disease pathogenesis, II) epidemiology of drug-resistant infectious diseases, and III) global health focused on infectious diseases of urban slums. Knowledge gained from each of the research areas is used to generate databases and reagents that can be used as research tools. All of these projects focus on infectious diseases of global importance, including tuberculosis, E. coli, and leptospirosis.
A
TB project centered at the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (the first rural
medical college of India) in the village of Sevagram is focused on the application of diagnostic and prognostic
tests for TB. A second study examines the large epidemic of febrile illness, of unknown etiology, that occurs
annally in Sevagram. In summer of 2006, a large epidemic of severe illness characterized by fever and
arthralgia occurred, and was suspected to be caused by Chikungunya virus. Descriptive and laboratory studies
are being conducted to characterize this epidemic.