Neeta Pradhan

Pune, India
Role: 
Staff
Tuberculosis Laboratory Coordinator
Neeta Pradhan headshot

Neeta Pradhan is a Medical Microbiologist holding a post graduate degree in Medical Microbiology (MSc- Medical Microbiology) and working in the laboratory field for more than 25 years with a total experience of more than 15 years in the Clinical Research field.

She has worked as a Laboratory Coordinator at NARI (National AIDS Research Institute) Clinical Trial Unit for various NIH projects like-- HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN), - AIDS Clinical Trial Group (ACTG), - Microbicide Trial Network (MTN).

She has also handled Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) projects.

She is currently working as a TB Laboratory Manager at Center of Infectious Diseases -India (CIDI) in Pune, India to overlook all the work that is carried out at the BJMC- CTU CRS site as well as all the other sites that collaborate with JHU. She is responsible and gives technical and TB laboratory support for all the TB network studies for ACTG/IMPACCT (International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials Network) as well as all the non-network studies (collaborations with various international /national universities & institutions) conducted at BJMC site.

Besides International Network protocols she also provides TB lab support for NIH, USA-DBT, India funded Adult (CTRIUMPh, RePORT) and NICHD funded Pediatric TB (TBM Kids Trial) studies and is also involved in TB vaccine trial (VPM 1002) funded by Serum Institute, India and the Shorter Treatment for Minimal TB in Children (SHINE)trial funded by Joint Global Health Trials Scheme of the Department for International Development, UK, the Welcome Trust, and the Medical Research Council at the University College London, UK.

As a Laboratory person and Clinical researcher, she has worked on the pediatric TB meningitis treatment trial and observational TB cohort studies. As a part of the observational TB cohorts, also participated in studying the nutritional, clinical, diagnostic correlates and advanced biomarkers for TB disease and infection in the pediatric population. She has worked on studies on pregnant women in collaboration with NICHD.

She has completed the “Multicenter Study of the Accuracy of the BD MAX™ MDR-TB assay for Detection of M. tuberculosis Complex and Mutations Associated with Resistance to Rifampin and Isoniazid” which was done in collaboration with NIH and Becton Dickinson Company.

She is a member of the RePORT Consortium laboratory working group, the Basic Science group, as well as a Voting member of the Laboratory Technologist Committee (ACTG) studies involving TB and pregnant/non pregnant women with or without HIV.

Besides providing technical support to the clinical trials she also manages the laboratory which includes overseeing the daily activities as well as quality management, SOP writing, training of staff facing audits, overseeing the external Quality Assurance programs to name but a few.

Pharmacokinetic Assessment of MDR-TB Drugs in the Treatment of TB Meningitis

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2020-08-23
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Rationale: MDR-TBM is a devastating disease with high mortality and severe neurologic sequelae among survivors. We recognize the importance of sufficient drug concentrations at the site of infection for efficacy of anti-TB drugs and believe it is likely that drug distribution into brain and CSF...

Epidemiology and Clinical Outcomes of COVID-19 in India (ECO-19)

Post Date: 
2020-07-09
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This study was terminated May 25, 2021 This is a prospective cohort study of adults with suspected COVID-19 to address key knowledge gaps in the epidemiology of disease severity and poor clinical outcomes in India. Results from this study may help clinicians in India focus limited health resources...

Pregnancy Associated Immune Responses to Tuberculosis and HIV in India and South Africa (PARTHISA)

Post Date: 
2020-01-14
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Dr. Jyoti Mathad is Co-PI of this study. Purpose: Tuberculosis (TB) is a leading cause of maternal mortality, especially among HIV-infected women. Women are most likely to develop active TB during and immediately after pregnancy. The immunologic conditions responsible for this phenomenon are not...

Markers of Lung Impairment in HIV-TB Coinfected Indian Adults

Post Date: 
2019-12-11
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Objectives/Aims We will compare the degree of lung impairment between HIV-TB co-infected adults (HIV-TB group) and TB cases without HIV co-infection (TB group) who successfully complete TB therapy. We hypothesize that the HIV-TB group will have a greater degree of lung...

Inflammasome Genetics and Tuberculosis Treatment Outcomes

Post Date: 
2019-11-07
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Dr. Amita Gupta is a Co-PI on this study. STUDY DESIGN We will conduct a retrospective case-cohort study nested within the CTRIUMPH and EDOTS cohorts to address our study objectives. This will enable us to measure the association of polymorphisms with multiple clinical outcomes simultaneously and...

Host RNA Expression for Diagnosis and Monitoring of Pediatric TB in Africa and India

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2018-12-13
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We are leveraging the RePORT platform by including a cohort of Indian children together with South African children in a large validation study to study on changes in gene expression profiles during treatment for TB

Impact of HIV and Diabetes Mellitus on TB Drug Resistance and Recurrence

Post Date: 
2017-03-02
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This study was terminated in January 2021. Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of mortality globally. With increasing burden of HIV and diabetes mellitus (DM), there is a critical need to understand the microbial response and ensuing disease dynamics of TB in the HIV-infected and diabetic host...

Residual Respiratory Impairment Following Pulmonary Tuberculosis

Post Date: 
2015-09-13
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This study is conducted by the Cohort for Tuberculosis Research by the Indo-US Medical Partnership (C-TRIUMPH) under the Regional Prospective Observational Research for Tuberculosis (RePORT) Network, an international TB consortium. Many TB patients have...

Cohort for Tuberculosis Research by the Indo-US Medical Partnership (C-TRIUMPH)

Post Date: 
2013-09-28
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Collaboratively funded by the US NIH, India’s Department of Biotechnology [DBT], and Indian Council of Medical Research, the Cohort for TB Research by the Indo-US Medical Partnership (C-TRIUMPH) is an Indo-US research consortium that is part of RePORT India, a countrywide consortium for TB...

RePORT India

Post Date: 
2012-06-30
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RePORT India is a joint venture between the Indian and US governments. The Indo-US Vaccine Action Program, a collaboration between the Indian Department of Biotechnology (DBT), the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), and the US NIH, is co-funding six teams of India- and US-based...

BWI CTU: Baltimore-Washington-India Clinical Trials Unit

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2007-02-02
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Comprising clinical trial sites at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, Whitman Walker Health in Washington, DC, and the BJGMC-CCGHE collaboration in Pune, India, the Baltimore-Washington-India Clinical Trials Unit (BWI-CTU) is one of only 25 international HIV/TB clinical trial sites funded by the...

Operational challenges undermine the WHO TB symptom screen in pregnant women in India

Post Date: 
2023-04-26
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Open Forum Infectious Diseases
Background. Pregnancy increases both a woman's risk of developing tuberculosis (TB) and her likelihood to seek health care. A symptom screen that is effective during pregnancy would therefore be valuable. We assessed a World Health Organization (WHO)-recommended TB symptom screen in an antenatal...

Sex Differences in TB Clinical Presentation, Drug Exposure, and Treatment Outcomes in India

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2023-04-01
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CHEST
Background: The role of sex differences in clinical presentation, TB drug pharmacokinetic variables, and treatment outcomes is unclear. Research question: What is the effect of sex on TB disease severity, drug exposure, and treatment outcome? Study design and methods: This study was a prospective...

The Kynurenine / Tryptophan Ratio is a Sensitive Biomarker for the Diagnosis of Pediatric Tuberculosis among Indian Children

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2022-12-22
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Frontiers in Immunology
Objectives: Pediatric tuberculosis (TB) remains difficult to diagnose. The plasma kynurenine to tryptophan ratio (K/T ratio) is a potential biomarker for TB diagnosis and treatment response but has not been assessed in children. Methods: We performed a targeted diagnostic accuracy analysis of four...

Whole Genome Sequencing Assessing Impact of Diabetes Mellitus on Tuberculosis Mutations and Type of Recurrence in India

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2022-10-06
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Clinical Infectious Diseases
Dr. Vidya Mave and colleagues concluded considerable intrahost mycobacterium tuberculosis mutation rates were present at recurrence among patients with diabetes mellitus.

Concomitant pulmonary disease is common among patients with extrapulmonary TB

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2022-08-12
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International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease
Dr. Shivakumar and his group discovered that a high proportion of patients classified as EPTB in India have concomitant PTB. Their results support the need for improved symptom and CXR screening, and recommends routine sputum TB microbiology screening of all Indian patients with EPTB.

Performance of Xpert MTB/RIF and Xpert Ultra for the diagnosis of tuberculous meningitis among Indian children

Post Date: 
2022-04-01
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International Journal of Tuberulosis and Lung Disease
OBJECTIVE: To assess Xpert® MTB/RIF (Xpert) and Xpert® MTB/RIF Ultra (Ultra) performance in diagnosing pediatric tuberculous meningitis (TBM). METHODS: We conducted a study among children with suspected meningoencephalitis in Pune, India. Clinical, radiological, laboratory, and treatment data were...

Host lipidome and tuberculosis treatment failure

Post Date: 
2022-01-06
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European Respiratory Journal
Introduction: Host lipids play important roles in tuberculosis (TB) pathogenesis. Whether host lipids at TB treatment initiation (baseline) affect subsequent treatment outcomes has not been well characterised. We used unbiased lipidomics to study the prospective association of host lipids with TB...

Diabetes Mellitus and Tuberculosis Treatment Outcomes in Pune, India

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2021-04-01
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Open Forum Infectious Diseases
Background Diabetes mellitus (DM) increases the risk of tuberculosis (TB) disease. Knowledge of the impact of DM on TB treatment outcomes is primarily based on retrospective studies. Methods We conducted a prospective cohort study of new pulmonary TB patients with and without DM (TB-DM and TB only...

Unhealthy alcohol use independently associated with unfavorable TB treatment outcomes among Indian men

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2021-03-10
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International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease
This study by Samyra Cox and colleagues highlights the need for integrating effective alcohol interventions into TB care.

Drug susceptibility patterns of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from adults with Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis and Implications for a Household Contact Preventive Therapy Trial

Post Date: 
2021-02-24
Publication: 
BMC Infectious Diseases
Background Drug susceptibility testing (DST) patterns of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) from patients with rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis (RR-TB) or multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB; or resistant to rifampicin and isoniazid (INH)), are important to guide preventive therapy for their household...

Integration of metabolomics and transcriptomics reveals novel biomarkers in the blood for tuberculosis diagnosis in children

Post Date: 
2020-11-11
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Scientific Reports
Pediatric tuberculosis (TB) remains a major global health problem. Improved pediatric diagnostics using readily available biosources are urgently needed. We used liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry to analyze plasma metabolite profiles of Indian children with active TB (n = 16) and age- and sex...

Tuberculosis preventive treatment should be considered for all household contacts of pulmonary tuberculosis patients in India

Post Date: 
2020-07-29
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PLoS One
PLoS One: Dr. Mandar Paradkar and colleagues conducted a CTRIUMPH study that supports TB preventive therapy for all household contacts of pulmonary TB patients in India

Assessment of the Xpert assay among new pulmonary tuberculosis suspects with and without diabetes mellitus

Post Date: 
2020-01-01
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International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease
IJTLD: Deshmukh and colleagues: High sensitivity and specificity of Xpert underscores need for rapid scale up for early detection of TB in settings with a high dual burden of TB and DM

Transcriptomic profiles of confirmed pediatric tuberculosis patients and household contacts identifies active tuberculosis, infection, and treatment response among Indian children

Post Date: 
2019-12-04
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Journal of Infectious Diseases
Journal of Infectious Diseases: Gene expression profiles among Indian children with confirmed TB were distinct from those of adults, highlighting the importance of including distinct populations in differential gene expression models

Lipid mediators of inflammation and resolution in individuals with tuberculosis and tuberculosis-diabetes

Post Date: 
2019-11-11
Publication: 
Prostaglandins and Other Lipid Mediators
Individuals with concurrent tuberculosis (TB) and Type 2 diabetes (DM) have a higher risk of adverse outcomes. To better understand potential immunological differences, we utilized a comprehensive panel to characterize pro-inflammatory and pro-resolving (i.e., mediators involved in the resolution...

MAL adaptor (TIRAP) S180L polymorphism and severity of disease among tuberculosis patients

Post Date: 
2019-10-31
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Infection, Genetics, and Evolution
Infection, Genetics, and Evolution : We investigated the association of TIRAP variants with severity of TB disease and IP-10 production in humans, which may be useful in predicting poor clinical outcome

Smoking, alcohol use disorder and tuberculosis treatment outcomes: A dual co-morbidity burden that cannot be ignored

Post Date: 
2019-07-31
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PLoS One
BACKGROUND: More than 20% of tuberculosis (TB) disease worldwide may be attributable to smoking and alcohol abuse. India is the second largest consumer of tobacco products, a major consumer of alcohol particularly among males, and has the highest burden of TB globally. The impact of...

Age-specific prevalence of TB infection among household contacts of pulmonary tuberculosis: Is it time for TB preventive therapy?

Post Date: 
2019-06-21
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Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
BACKGROUND: Household contacts (HHCs) of TB patients are at high risk of developing evidence of latent TB infection (LTBI) and active disease from the index patient. We estimated the age-specific prevalence of LTBI and the force of infection (FI), as a measure of recent transmission, among HHCs of...

Assessment of lung function in successfully treated tuberculosis reveals high burden of ventilatory defects and COPD

Post Date: 
2019-05-23
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PLoS One
New in PLoS One: We found a high burden of lung function defects and COPD in tuberculosis cases who successfully completed treatment, suggesting a need for lung function screening as part of patient management.

Subtherapeutic rifampicin concentration is associated with unfavourable tuberculosis treatment outcomes

Post Date: 
2019-05-10
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Clinical Infectious Diseases
Rifampicin concentrations were sub-therapeutic in most Indian patients taking a thrice-weekly TB regimen

Pages

Research Update: TB Trials Conducted by JHU-India Team Will Shorten Drug-Susceptible TB Treatment for Children and Adults

Post Date: 
2020-12-07
Research Updated
Reporting from the virtual 51st Union Conference on Lung Health, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced promising findings from 2 TB trials

Advancing Global TB Research through RePORT

Post Date: 
2016-02-29
Regional Prospective Observational Research for Tuberculosis (RePORT) International is a large, international tuberculosis research effort being undertaken by 4 regional consortia: RePORT Brazil, RePORT South Africa, RePORT Indonesia, and RePORT India. While each region collects and maintains...