Challenges and Solutions Against Visceral Leishmaniasis

resistance in kala-azar and post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis. Her work on drug resistance (antimony, miltefosine, paromomycin and artemisinin) in leishmaniasis yielded new insights into mechanisms operative in clinical isolates. She has authored more than 60 research articles and several book chapters. She has been at the forefront of clinical research in visceral leishmaniasis. She has received several prestigious national and international awards, including ICMR Awards: Shakuntala Amirchand (Best published work-2006) and Maj Gen Saheb Singh Sokhey (Communicable diseases-2015) award and UNESCO L'Oréal FWIS fellowship for Asia-Pacific-2006. She is Associate Editor at Frontiers in Epidemiology.

Dr. Niti Puri, Ph.D., joined School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi as Assistant Professor in Immunology in May, 2008, after Post-doctoral experience in India at JNU and National Institute of Immunology, Delhi and as a Fogarty Fellow and Visiting Fellow Employee at National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA. Her extensive research in Cellular and Molecular Immunology is focused on studying the molecular mechanisms of innate immune cell effector mechanisms during infectious and non-infectious diseases with the intent to find novel therapeutics. Her research has revealed the molecular mechanisms, and novel effector responses involving mast cells during infectious diseases like Leishmaniasis, Tuberculosis, Candidiasis and non-infectious inflammatory disease like an allergic response, anemia and cancer. Her studies of mast cell interactions with intracellular pathogens like Leishmania have provided evidence for a very important direct role for mast cells in clearance of these pathogens by both intracellular and extracellular mechanisms. These studies highlight the importance of mast cells in these infectious disease outcomes and therapeutic strategy development. She has carried out several highly competitive