Ruthu
Nagaraju
I, Ruthu N, from the Anchekoppalu village, Karnataka, India, have received a Bachelor’s degree in Microbiology from the University of Mysore, Mysore, India in 2008 and a Master’s degree in Microbiology from the University of Mysore, Mysore, India, in 2010.
I served as a lecturer in the Institute of Medical Laboratory Technicians, Tiptur, Karnataka, India from 2011 to 2012, and then worked as a Junior Research Fellow in the Department of Agricultural Microbiology, University of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences, Shimoga, Karnatka, India for a year. Later in 2014, I took up the job of a teaching assistant in the University of Davanagere, Davanagere, Karnataka, India. Subsequently, in 2016 I worked as a Junior Research Fellow for a brief period of eight months at the Institute of Life Sciences, Bhubaneswar, Orissa, India. Since January 2017 I am working as a Junior Research Fellow in the Department of Neurovirology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, India.
My research interest has been infectious disease biology and immunology of Viral Infections. The current research project that I am working in is focused on improving rabies vaccine efficacy in canines to eventually bring about better prevention of rabies among humans.
Since the last two and a half years, I am working in the field of disease biology of viral infections and rabies vaccine specific immune responses, which has been my area of interest. Rabies is an important public health problem in India. The major focus of the current research project at NIMHANS is on improving the immune responses to currently available vaccination regimens against Rabies infection in canines to enable better control and prevention of rabies in humans. The preliminary part of the study uses the approach of administering Natural Killer T cell based adjuvants with rabies vaccines in the murine model followed by analysis of protective immune responses. The expected outcomes of this study are: enhancement of rabies vaccine specific immune responses, vaccine dose sparing, sustained immune responses for longer duration eventually resulting in cost effective rabies vaccination.