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Nirbhay Kumar, PhD
Professor and Chair
Department of Tropical Medicine
Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
1440 Canal Street, Suite 2210
New Orleans, LA 70112
Phone 504.988.2577
Fax 504.988.7313
nkumar@tulane.edu
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Personal Statement
Dr. Kumar's
studies focus on the biochemistry, molecular biology and immunology of antigens
expressed in the sexual stages of malaria parasite and host-parasite
interaction. Some of the major projects currently include: (i) molecular
mechanisms of sexual differentiation in Plasmodium,
(ii) development of a malaria transmission blocking vaccine, (iii)
characterization of malarial 'recombinosome', (iv) immune- and molecular
epidemiology of malaria studies in Zimbabwe and Zambia, (v) malaria and
helminth co-infections in mouse models and in humans, (vi) sporozoite –
salivary gland interactions, (vii) determinants of malaria transmission
success, (viii) K+ channels and malaria transmission, (ix) malaria specific
memory B cell responses, (x) development of transgenic murine malaria parasites
as tools to investigate transmission blocking vaccines.
Research Interests:
Immunobiology of malaria transmission; Malaria Transmission blocking vaccine; Natural Immunity to Malaria; Recombination mechanisms in Plasmodium; Helminth – Plasmodium co-infections; Animal models for human malaria vaccines; Host-Parasite adaptation including Parasite-vector interactions
Educational Background:
- B.Sc., Agra University, India, 1970
- M.Sc., Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India, 1972
- Ph.D., All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, India, 1977
Professional Achievements, Honors, Awards, & Recognitions:
- 1993: Member Steering Committee on Immunology of Malaria, TDR, World HealthOrganization
- 1994-1997: Expert Member, Scientific Advisory Committee, Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India
- 1999: ASM-UNESCO-Visiting Resource Program
- 2002: Life Science 2002 Invention of the Year award, "Malaria Detection and Diagnosis." APL
- 2002: JHU-APL, R.W.Hart Prize in Research honoring Excellence in Independent Research and Development
- 2002: JHU-APL Publication Award for an Outstanding Research Paper in an Externally Refereed Publication
- 2003: R. Barclay McGhee Memorial Lecture, American Society of Parasitology
- 2005: Ranbaxy Science Foundation Medical Sciences (Basic Science) Award
- 2007: Elected AAAS Fellow (American Association for the Advancement of Sciences)
- 2008: Gairdner Symposium lecture
- 2011: Chair, Travel Awards Committee of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
- 2012: Elected Fellow, American Academy of Microbiology
-
2013: Member, Education Committee, Association of Medical Schools of Microbiology and Immunology Chairs
Selected Recent Publications (Out of >150 published):
Kumar S, Zheng H, Sangweme
DT, Mahajan B, Kozakai Y, Pham PT, Morin MJ, Locke E, Kumar Nirbhay. A chemiluminescent-western blot assay
for quantitative detection of Plasmodium
falciparum circumsporozoite protein. J. Immunol. Methods. 10:
1016/j/im.(2013).
Mlambo G, Coppens, I, Kumar, Nirbhay. Aberrant
sporogonic development of Dmc1 (a meiotic recombinase) deficient Plasmodium berghei parasites. PLoS One,
7(12): e52480 (2012).
Chaerkaddy, R, Kelkar, DS, Muthusamy, B, Kandasamy, K, Dwivedi, SB, Sahasrabudde, SA, Kim, MS,
Renuse, S, Pinto, SM, Sharma, R, Pawar, H, Sekhar, NR, Mohanty, AK, Getnet,
D, Yang, Y, Dash, AP, MacCallum, RM,
Delanghe, B, Mlambo, G, Kumar, A, Okulate,
M, Kumar, Nirbhay and Pandey, A. A
proteogenomic analysis of Anopheles gambiae using high-resolution
Fourier transform mass spectrometry. Genome Research, 21: 1872-81 (2011).
Midzi, N,
Zinyowera-Mutapuri, S, Sangweme, DT, Paul, NH, Makware, G, Mapingure, MP,
Brouwer, KC, Mudzori, J, Hlerema, G, Chadukura, V, Mutapi, F, Kumar, Nirbhay,
Mduluza, T. Efficacy of integrated school based de-worming and prompt malaria
treatment on helminths-Plasmodium
falciparum co-infections: A 33 months follow up. BMC International Health
and Human Rights. 11:9 (2011).
Midzi, N,
Zinyowera-Mutapuri, S, Mapingure, MP, Paul, NH, Sangweme, DT, Hlerema, G,
Mutsaka, MJ, Tongogara, F, Makware, G, Chadukura, V, Brouwer, KC, Mutapi, F,
Kumar, Nirbhay, Mduluza, T. Knowledge attitudes and practices of grade three
primary schoolchildren in relation to schistosomiasis, soil transmitted
helmintiasis and malaria in Zimbabwe. BMC Infectious Diseases. 11: 169 (2011).
Noland,
G, Chowdhury, D, Urban, J., Fried, B and Kumar Nirbhay. Reduced immunogenicity of a malaria subunit vaccine
in helminth infected mice. Vaccine. 28: 2917-2923 (2010).
Mlambo,
G, Kumar, Nirbhay, Yoshida, S.
Functional immunogenicity of baculovirus expressing Pfs25, a human malaria
transmission-blocking vaccine candidate antigen. Vaccine , 28: 7025-9 (2010).
Sangweme,
DS, Midzi, N, Mutapuri, S, Mduluza, T, Diener-West, M & Kumar, Nirbhay. Impact of schistosome
infections on Plasmodium falciparum
malariometeic índices and immune correlates in school age children in Burma
Valley, Zimbabwe. PLos NTD 4: e882 (2010).
Sangweme,
D., Shiff, C and Kumar, Nirbhay.
Adverse outcome of nonlethal Plasmodium
yoelii malaria during co-infection with Schistosoma
mansoni in a mouse model. Experimental Parasitology. 122: 254-259 (2009).
Ghosh, AK, Martin Devenport, Deepa Jethwaney, Dario E. Kalume, Akhilesh Pandey,
Vernon E. Anderson, Ali A. Sultan, Nirbhay
Kumar, and Marcelo Jacobs-Lorena. Malaria parasite invasion of the
mosquito salivary gland requires interaction between the Plasmodium trap and the Anopheles
Saglin proteins. Plos Pathogen.5 (1):e100265 (Jan. 2009).
Nyunt, MM, Hendrix, CW, Bakhshi, R, Kumar,
Nirbhay, Shapiro, TA. Phase I/II evaluation of the prophylactic
antimalarial activity of pafuramidine in health volunteers challenged with Plasmodium falciparum sporozoites. Am.
J. Trop. Med. Hyg. 80: 528 (2009).
Chen, X, Xie, S, Kumar, Nirbhay.,
Shapiro, T. and Liu, J. Fumagillin and Fumarranol interact with P. falciparum methionine aminopeptidase
2 and inhibit parasite growth in vitro and in vivo. Chemistry & Biology,
16: 193-202 (2009).
Chowdhury, RD., Angov, E, Kariuki, T, and Kumar, Nirbhay. A Potent Malaria Transmission Blocking Vaccine
Based on Codon Harmonized Full Length Pfs48/45 Expressed in E. coli. Plos ONE:
4: 36352 (2009).
Ellekvist, E., Jorge
Maciel, Godfree Mlambo, Christina H. Ricke, Hanne Colding, Dan A. Klaerke, and Nirbhay Kumar. Critical role of a K+
channel in Plasmodium berghei
transmission revealed by targeted gene disruption. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 105:
6398-6402 (2008).
Mahajan, B, Selvapandiyan, A, Gerald, NJ, Majam, V, Zheng, H, Tiwari, J,
Fujioka, H, Moch, JK, Kumar, Nirbhay,
Nakhashi, HL, Kumar, S. Centrins, cell cycle regulation proteins in human
malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum.
J. Biol. Chem. 283: 31871-83 (2008).
LeBlanc, R, Vasquez, Y, Hannaman, D and Kumar,
Nirbhay. Markedly enhanced immunogenicity of a Pfs25 DNA based malaria
transmission blocking vaccine by in vivo electroporation. Vaccine 26: 185-192
(2008).
Mlambo, G, Maciel, J and Kumar, Nirbhay.
Development of a mouse model to evaluate malaria transmission blocking vaccines
using a transgenic Plasmodium berghei
expressing target antigen Pfs25. Infection & Immunity, 76: 2018-2024
(2008).
Mlambo, G. and Kumar, Nirbhay.
Transgenic rodent Plasmodium berghei:
tools for assessment of functional immunogenicity and optimization of human
malaria vaccines. Eukaryotic CELL. 7: 1875-1979 (2008).
Mlambo, G, Vasquez, Y, LeBlanc, E, Sullivan, D, Kumar, Nirbhay. An RT-PCR based detection of Plasmodium falciparum gametocytes using blood collected on filter
papers. Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg. 78: 114-116 (2008).
Noland, G. S., Joseph F. Urban, Jr., Bernard Fried, Nirbhay Kumar. Counter-regulatory anti-parasite cytokine responses
during concurrent Plasmodium yoelii
and intestinal helminth infections in mice. Experimental Parasitology 119:
272-278 (2008).
Okulate,
M., Kalume, D.E., Kristiansen, T., Bhattacharyy, M.K., Pandey, A. , and Kumar, Nirbhay. Identification and
molecular characterization of a novel protein SAGLIN recognized by monoclonal
antibodies affecting infectivity of Plasmodium
sporozoite infectivity of salivary glands in An. gambiae. Insect Molecular
Biology 16: 711-722 (2007).
Mlambo, G. and Kumar, Nirbhay. A
modified Plasmodium falciparum growth
inhibition assay (GIA) to assess activity of plasma from malaria endemic areas.
Exp. Parasitology. 115:211-214 (2007).
Kumar, Nirbhay. A vaccine to prevent transmission of human
malaria: a long way to travel on a dusty and often bumpy road. Current Science.
92: 1535-1543 (Invited review for special section on Malaria, 2007).
Promeneur, D., Liu, Y., Maciel, J., Agre, P. and Kumar, Nirbhay. Evidence for a role of the Plasmodium berghei aquaglyceroporin (pbAQP) in the intrerythrocytic
development of the malaria parasite. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 104: 2211-2216
(2007).
Yangjian Liu, Dominique Promeneur, Aleksandra Rojek, Nirbhay Kumar, Jørgen Frøkiær, Søren Nielsen, Landon S. King,
Peter Agre, and Jennifer M. Carbrey. Aquaporin 9 is the major pathway for
glycerol uptake by mouse erythrocytes, with implications for malarial
virulence. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 104: 12560-64 (2007).
Level of Instruction:
Graduate
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