PGI MicrobiologistProf Kusum Sharma wins prestigious AN Chakrabarti award at MICROCON 2022
Prof Kusum Sharma, Department of MedicalMicrobiology PGIMER, Chandigarh won the prestigious Prof AN Chakrabarty MemorialPrize 2022 for her work in the field of Tuberculous meningitis. Her work was titled Comparative analysis of TrunatTM MTB Plus and XPERT Ultra indiagnosing tuberculous meningitis. This award is given by Indian Society ofMedical Microbiology for the best published research in the field of mycobacteriology (Tuberculosis).This was presented during the recently held National Conference of Microbiology (Microcon 2022) at Bhubaneshwar.
Prof Kusum has been actively working in the field of extrapulmonary tuberculosissince 2007. She played an important role in establishing, and facilitating themolecular diagnosis of tuberculosis at PGI. Her group demonstrated multidrugresistance in ocular tuberculosis for the first time in the world. Then shedeveloped LAMP and Multi-targeted LAMP to facilitate tuberculosis diagnosis inresource constrained settings. This was a major leap as this is a cheap techniqueand does not require very sophisticated equipment and can even be carried outin areas without good electricity connection.
She has received Fogarty fellowship,USA twice (2010 and then 2015). Duringone of these fellowships in the USA in 2015, Prof. Kusum Sharma spent three monthsat John’s Hopkins Baltimore understanding the nuances of genomic work , whichshe replicated in the field of extra pulmonary tuberculosis and published it.Her work has significantly impacted the diagnostics and outcomes in patientswith extra-pulmonary tuberculosis. Large numbers of widely cited publicationsin high impact journals are a testimony of continuous quest to find answers tounanswered questions in this challenging field. Her quest for improving thelives of patients with TB and NTM infections continues with commitment.
She isa part of the International Tuberculosis Research consortium and was invited topresent her work during the groups meeting held at University of OXFORD, UK.
Prof Kusum Sharma has been approached by other centers for collaborative moleculardiagnostic work like Prof SK Sharma(Ex HOD Medicine, AIIMS , New Delhi), ProfVikas Aggarwal(SGPGI) and many others. Considering her experience in the field, she was chosen to be the Group lead of themicrobiology support group for the INDEX TB guidelines on extrapulmonary tuberculosisfor India. These guidelines were published by the central TB division, ministry ofhealth and family welfare, Government of India, convened by AIIMS, New Delhi andwere developed in partnership with Global Health advocates, Cochrane infectiousdisease group, Cochrane South Asia, WHO office of India.
