Advisory Board and Editors Infectious Diseases
Martina Schroeder
Dr Martina Schroeder is a Lecturer and Head of the Host-Pathogen Interaction Lab at Maynooth University. Her research addresses viral recognition, innate immune signaling pathways, and the roles of DEAD-box proteins in immunity. Previously Dr Schroeder conducted postdoctoral research with Prof. Andrew Bowie at Trinity College Dublin. In 2007, she was awarded a postdoctoral career development fellowship by the Irish HRB. She completed her PhD at the Charité University Hospital in Berlin in 2003.
Arif J Siddiqui
Dr. Arif Jamal Siddiqui is an Associate Professor and Principal Investigator at the Department of Biology, College of Science, University of Hail, Saudi Arabia. He received his PhD from CSIR-Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow, India in 2015. From 2015 to 2018, he worked as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock, Texas, United States of America.
He has more than 8 years of experience in research, teaching and administration. In his professional work, he has received research grants as a Principal Investigator from various renowned organizations. He has successfully published more than 100 publications in internationally recognized peer-reviewed prestigious journals, published several book chapters for internationally renowned publishers and presented many articles and posters in various conferences/workshops worldwide. He has published numerous papers in the fields of parasitology, immunology, herbal medicine, vaccine development, drug discovery and natural products with a specialization in anti-parasitic, antiviral, anticancer and antibacterial agents. Furthermore, he is a member of The Indian Science Congress Association, India and the Annals of Parasitology, Poland. He has reviewed more than 250 manuscripts and he also currently holds various editorial positions (Academic, Associate, Guest and Review Editor) in various reputable journals and has edited more than 150 manuscripts.
Joana C Silva
My group applies evolutionary genetics and genomic sciences to basic research on species evolution and translational research of infectious diseases. I have been studying infectious disease genomics since the early 2000's. At The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) I was part of the team that launched the field of parasite genomics, with work on several Plasmodium and trypanosomatid species, Theileria parva and Trichomonas vaginalis. At the Institute for Genome Sciences, University of Maryland School of Medicine, we have ongoing projects on a variety of parasites in the phylum Apicomplexa. These include the causative agents of malaria in humans (genus Plasmodium), tropical theileriosis and East Coast fever in cattle (genus Theileria), human babesiosis (genus Babesia), and human cryptosporidiosis (genus Cryptosporidium). Ongoing projects include the study of species biology and the nature of host-parasite interactions, based on the generation and analyses of genomes, and studies of vaccine efficacy and vaccine design, drug resistance and the evolution of parasite populations, informed by population genomics data. Our research is funded by NSF, NIH, USDA and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Rajesh Kumar Singh
Dr. Rajesh Kumar Singh was born in 1980. He received his B. Pharmacy (2003) and M. Pharmacy (2005) from UIPS, Panjab University, Chandigarh. He completed his PhD in 2013 from IKG Punjab Technical University (IKGPTU), Jalandhar.
Dr. Singh’s major areas of research interest are synthetic medicinal chemistry, polymer-drug conjugates for targeted delivery, Antimalarial and CNS active therapeutic agents and green chemistry approaches for the chemical synthesis of pharmaceutical molecules.
Dr. Singh has over 14 years of teaching experience, guided 18 PG and 01 Ph.D. students and currently guiding 02 PhD students. He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed scientific research papers in SCI-indexed various Chemistry and Pharmacy Journals of impact factor 1.5 to 4.8 as the main or corresponding author.
Dr. Singh is an Editorial Board Member of SCOPUS indexed 06 Int. Journals. He has received the Publon Awards 2016, and 2017 and the Publon “Excellent Peer Reviewer award” for outstanding reviewing more than 120 research papers in different International Journals of ACS, RSC, Springer, Elsevier, Dove, Informa and Bentham of Impact Factor varies from 1.0 to 8.5. He has also to his credit more than 50 National and International Conference Abstracts, 2 Books, 5 Best Paper Presentation Awards, 1 Travel grant to attend Int. Conf. and 5 Research Projects funded by various government funding agencies. His name is featured in the top 2% scientists list (2023) by the team of Stanford University, USA and Elsevier.
Aditya Singh
Aditya Singh is a researcher and academician, presently serving as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Geography in Banaras Hindu University. He is also an External Research Collaborator at the GIRL Centre, Population Council, New York. Dr. Singh has a strong academic background, including a PhD in Health Sciences and Social Work from the University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom, an MPhil in Demography from the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, and an MA and BA in Geography from Banaras Hindu University. Prior to his current position, Dr. Singh held research positions at the University of Portsmouth, UK, Oxford Policy Management, IIPS Mumbai, and Public Health Foundation of India, New Delhi. Dr. Singh's research work is focused on the geographies of health and healthcare, social determinants of health, and socioeconomic inequalities in health and healthcare. He has published over 30 papers in national and international journals, including Lancet Psychiatry, Health Policy and Planning, PLOS One, Journal of Public Health, Social Science and Medicine, Journal of Biosocial Science, and BMC Health Services Research, among others. He has also co-edited a book on 'Urban Poverty in India' with Dr. Olivier Brito, his collaborator from the University of Paris. He has delivered numerous oral and posters presentations in international conferences held in various countries such as USA, UK, Brazil, France, Italy, and UAE. He is currently a member of the editorial boards for several prestigious public health journals, including PLOS Global Public Health, PLOS One, PeerJ Life & Environment, Frontiers in Public Health, and BMC Public Health.
Reema Singh
I am a computational Biologist/Bioinformatician with more than 14 years of research experience. I obtained my Master's and Ph.D. degrees in “Bioinformatics” from Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University (Hisar, India) in 2006 and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU, New Delhi, India) in 2015, respectively. I worked as Scientist-1 in the “Biomedical Informatics center” at the Indian Council of Medical Research (New Delhi, India) from 2006 to 2012. During my stay in ICMR, I developed an antimicrobial resistance (AMR) gene database of ß-lactamase proteins (Dlact) from 814 publically available bacterial genomes. This database contains 2020 ß-lactamases which were further classified using graph-based clustering of best bidirectional hits to identify the group-specific signature of ß-lactamases.
I moved to Scotland (United Kingdom) in 2013 for my first postdoc in Bioinformatics at the University of Dundee. In my first postdoc, I performed the bioinformatics analysis of next-generation data generated from various projects related to the model organism Dictyostelium discoideum (which aims to probe the genetic pathways involved in different stages of development). In 2017, I joined the university of Saskatchewan for a second postdoc to work on a research project entitled “A Disruptive Whole Genome Sequencing Platform for the Simultaneous Identification and Characterization of Multiple Sexually Transmitted Pathogens”. As a part of the project, I have developed a computational Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) pipeline, named Gen2Epi, to link full genomes to antimicrobial susceptibility and molecular epidemiological data in Neisseria gonorrhoeae. In my current position (since March 2022) as Bioinformatician and Data Manager at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, I am applying my bioinformatics skills to understand host response to viral infections.
Ajay K Singh
Dr. Ajay Singh completed his Ph.D. in Respiratory Medicine (Virology) from King George’s Medical University (KGMU), India, where he researched viral-induced COPD exacerbation.
Currently, he is working in the Oncology, Immunology, and Microbiology Department at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, USA, where he is studying the role of complement proteins in liver cancer.
He has experience in researching Cystic fibrosis to investigate the CFTR-NHERF2-LPA2 complex's role in neutrophil infiltration and lung inflammation at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, USA. He has also worked on diabetes, where he evaluated human islets and mice transplanted with human islets to understand islet biology and diabetes at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, USA.
Srinivas Sistla
Dr. Srinivas Sistla is Director of Laboratories within the Microbiology and Immunology Department at State University of New York (SUNY) Stony Brook. He is a trained Biophysics and Drug Discovery Scientist, with experience working for industry and academia.
Dr. Sistla obtained his PhD in 2008 (Biotechnology and Biophysics) and is interested in the following fields of research; Bioactive Peptides, Biochemistry, Biophysics, Medical Biochemistry and Metabolomics, and Surface Plasmon Resonance.
Sutthirat Sitthisak
Dr. Sutthirat Sitthisak is an Associate Professor of Microbiology in the Department of Microbiology and Paraitology at Naresuan University.
Her research interests include molecular characterization of antibiotic resistance and virulence genes in Methicillin resistant Staphylococci, Acinetobacter baumannii and Morganella morganii, and molecular characterization of Acinetobacter baumannii, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia and Escherichia coli bacteriophages: applications in medicine and biocontrol.
Ashish K Solanki
My Ph.D. (Structural Biology/Biochemistry) focused on studying the pathogenesis of the HIV-1 virus and finding ways to combat its infection. It included structural analysis of the interaction of HIV-1 gp120 with neutralizing and non-neutralizing mAbs, chimeric antibody-CD4 IgG2, and with the host cell surface glycoprotein CD4. Although in the past I have been working on structural, biophysical, and biochemical methods to answer some of the critical questions in biology, my interest in cell signaling and protein trafficking enabled me to join the Dept. of Nephrology, MUSC, South Carolina as a postdoctoral fellow. I have gained a large amount of experience in the field of protein biochemistry and substantial knowledge of podocyte biology during months spent as a postdoc. I explored the role of the exocyst complex in podocyte development and functions, critical aspects of cell signaling, studying pathophysiology and diseases progression caused by mutations in slit diaphragm proteins, which not only helped to get publications but increased my understanding in the field of podocyte biology. The understanding and development of animal model systems in the lab further helped me to strengthen my podocyte experience. I also worked on developing a novel cell-based assay to diagnose recurrent Focal and Segmental Glomerulosclerosis.
Valeria Souza
Full professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Winner of several national conservation awards. Expert on microbial evolutionary ecology, works studying microbial mats and complex communities at Cuatro Ciénegas Coahuila, Mexico