Sri Sakthi Amma Institute Of Biomedical Research

Facilities Available

Dedicated molecular biology facility as an independent unit with complete access for researchers to microbiology, hematology and biochemistry facilities of the department of laboratory medicine of SNH&RC

National Level CME / Conference Organized

1. CME programme on Recent Advances in Infectious Diseases with distinguished ICMR scientists from different ICMR institutes on July 2008.
2. CME programme at SNHRC under the auspices of International Association of Medical and Pharmaceutical Virologists on Oct 2 2010. Title: “New Frontiers in Human Viral Diseases”. This programme was well attended and utilized by graduates and post-graduates from various academic and research institutions.
3. Symposium on Viral infections of Public Health Importance on 3rd November 2012 under the sponsorship of ICMR and SNH&RC.
4. SNHRC and IMSA Joint CME on “Recent trends in the understanding of emerging infectious diseases of India” on 7th December 2013
5. Dec 2014 Organized a CME on “An Update on Infectious Diseases” on 1 st December 2014 at Sri Narayani Hospital &Research Centre
6. May 2016 Organized a CME “New Frontiers in Biomedical Sciences” on 31st May 2016 at Sri Narayani Hospital &Research Centre
7. Jan 2018 Organized 7th National level CME on “ Role of Virology for the improvement in Public Health with Special Reference to the Indian Context on 15th Jan 2018 at Sri Narayani Hospital &Research Centre
8. CME on “Approach to Acute Chest Pain” -21-Apr-2018
9. CME on “Cardiovascular Disease and Role of Lifestyle Modification”-29-Sep-2018,
10. CME on Management of Sub Clinical Hhypo Thyroidism – Avideotalkby Eminent endocrinologist, DrSoumik Goswami from Kolkata – 08-Sep-2018
11. CME on “Management of ACS in ER” – 01-June-2019
12. CME on “Genetics Dx in Clinical Practice” by Dr.Srinivasan MS, PhD, from Med Genome Labs Ltd, Bangalore on 23-May-2019
13. CME on “Organ Donation Awareness Session” – 07-Dec-2019
14. CME on Quiz, Poster Session in connection with The World Kidney Day. Kindly make it convenient to attend and participate in the programme. 13-Mar-2019
15. CME on Quiz, Poster Session in connection with The World Kidney Day. Kindly make it convenient to attend and participate in the programme. 11-Mar-2020

List Of Publications (In Peer-Reviewed National And International Journals)

1. Balaji Nandagopal, Kavitha Balaji, Karthikeyan L, and Rekha N, Syphilis is predominantly an urban problem in Vellore district of Tamilnadu, Indian Journal of Sexually Transmitted Disease 2008; 29(1): 46-47.
2. Balaji N, Nadarajah R, Sathish Sankar, Varadhan C, Hepatitis B Virus and Human immunodeficiency virus infections are a public health problem even in rural communities of Vellore district, Tamil Nadu, Indian Journal of Medical Microbiology 2009; 27(1): 80-81.
3. Nandagopal B, Sankar S, Karthikeyan L, Appu KC, Padmini B, Sridharan G, Gopinath AK. Prevalence of Salmonella typhi among patients with febrile illness in rural and peri-urban population of Vellore district as determined by a nested PCR targeting the flagellin gene. Molecular Diagnosis and Therapy 2010; 14(2):107-12.
4. Nandagopal B, Sankar S, Lingesan K, Appu KC, Sridharan G, Gopinathan AK. Evaluation of a nested PCR targeting IS6110 of Mycobacterium tuberculosis for detection of the organism in the leukocyte fraction of blood samples. Indian Journal of Medical Microbiology 2010; 28(3): 227-32.
5. Balaji K, Sankar S, Balaji Nandagopal. Low birth weight of newborns: magnitude of the problem seen in a 100 bed hospital of a rural area in Vellore District, Tamilnadu (India). Indian Journal of Community Medicine 2010; 35(2): 361-3.
6. Kannangai R, Abraham AM, Sankar S, Sridharan G. Nanotechnology tools for single-virus ‏ particle detection (Review). Indian Journal of Medical Microbiology 2010; 28(10): 95-9.
7. Sankar S, Balakrishnan B, Nandagopal B, Thangaraju T, Natarajan S. Comparative evaluation of a nested PCR and conventional smear technique for the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in sputum samples. Molecular Diagnosis and Therapy 2010; 14(4): 223-7.
8. *S Sankar, B Balakrishnan, B Nandagopal, K Thangaraju, S Natarajan. Comparative evaluation of two polymerase chain reactions targeting different genomic regions to detect Mycobacterium tuberculosis in sputum. Indian Journal of Medical Microbiology. Oct-Dec 2010;28(4):303-7.
9. Sankar S, Ramamurthy M, Nandagopal B, Sridharan G. An appraisal of the polymerase chain reaction based technology in the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Molecular Diagnosis and Therapy 2011; 14(6): 1-11.
10. Nandagopal B, Sankar S, Ramamurthy M, Sathish S, Sridharan G. Could the products of Indian medicinal plants be the next alternative for the treatment of infections? Indian Journal of Mdical Microbiology 2011; 29(2): 93-101.
11. Sankar S, Kuppanan S, Balakrishnan B, Nandagopal B. In-silico analysis of sequence diversity among IS6110 sequence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis: possible implications for PCR based detection. Bioinformation 2011; 6(11): 1-3.
12. Sankar S, Ramamurthy M, Nandagopal B, Srikanth P, Venkatraman G, Sridharan G. Molecular and nanotechnological approach to etiological diagnosis of infectious syndromes. Molecular Diagnosis and Therapy 2011; 15(3): 145-158.
13. Nandagopal B, Sankar S, Lingesan K, Appu KC, Sridharan G, Gopinathan AK. Application of PCR to detect Burkholderia pseudomallei and Brucella species in buffy coat from patients with febrile illness among rural and peri-urban population. Journal of Global Infectious Diseases 2012; 4(1):34-40.
14. Sankar S, Narayanan H, Kuppanan S, Nandagopal B. Frequency of ESBL-producing Gram negative bacilli in a 200 bed multi-specialty hospital in Vellore district, Tamil Nadu, India – a prospective, cross-sectional study. Infection 2012; 40(4): 425-429.
15. Narayanan H, Sankar S, Simoes EAF, Nandagopal B, Sridharan G. Molecular detection of human metapneumovirus and human bocavirus on oropharyngeal swabs collected from young children with acute respiratory tract infection from rural and peri-urban communities of India (South). Molecular Diagnosis and Therapy 2013 17(2): 107-115.
16. Narayanan H, Sankar S, Simoes EAF, Nandagopal B, Sridharan G. Analysis of sequence diversity of Human metapneumovirus collected from young children with acute respiratory tract infections in India (South). Molecular Diagnosis and Therapy 2013 Aug;17(4):247-55.
17. Sankar S, Kuppanan S, Nandagopal B, Sridharan G. Diversity of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi strains collected from India using variable number tandem repeats-PCR analysis. Molecular Diagnosis and Therapy 2013 Aug;17(4):257-64.
18. Ramamurthy M, Srikanth P, Seshan V, Sarangan G, Sankar S, Nandagopal B, Sridharan G. Arboviruses of Importance In India: Part I. Biological, transmission characteristics, certain unique issues and clinical features. Sri Ramachandra Journal of Medicine 2013 6(1): 22-30.
19. Ramamurthy M, Srikanth P, Seshan V, Sarangan G, Sankar S, Nandagopal B, Sridharan G. Arboviruses of importance in India: Part II. Epidemiology, Laboratory Diagnosis, Treatment, Prevention and Control. Sri Ramachandra Journal of Medicine 2013 Jul – Dec 2013; 6(2): 6-16.
20. George EA, Sankar S, Jesudason MV, Sudandiradoss C, Nandagopal B. Incidence of extended spectrum β-lactamase producing Escherichia coli among patients, healthy individuals and environment. Indian Journal of Medical Microbiology 2014 32(2): 172-174.
21. Sankar S, Vadivel K, Nandagopal B, Jesudason MV, Sridharan G. A multiplex nested PCR for the simultaneous detection of Salmonella typhi, Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Burkholderia pseudomallei in patients with pyrexia of unknown origin (PUO) in Vellore, South India. Molecular Diagnosis and Therapy 2014 18(3): 315-321.
22. George EA, Sankar S, Jesudason MV, Sudandiradoss C, Nandagopal B. Molecular characterization of CTX-M type extended spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) producing E. coli isolated from humans and the environment”. Indian J Med Microbiol 2015 33(5): 73-79.
23. Nandagopal B, Sankar S, Sagadevan K, Arumugam H, Jesudason MV, Aswathaman K, Nair A. Frequency of extended spectrum β-lactamase producing urinary isolates of Gram negative bacilli among patients seen in a multispecialty hospital in Vellore district, India. Indian J Med Microbiol 2015; 33(2): 282-5.
24. Sankar S, Upadhyay M, Ramamurthy M, Vadivel K, Sagadevan K, Nandagopal B, Vivekanandan P, Sridharan G. Novel insights on hantavirus evolution: the dichotomy in evolutionary pressures acting on different hantavirus segments. PLoS One, 2015 10(7): e0133407.
25. Ramamurthy M, Sankar S, Arumugam I, Nandagopal B, Srikanth P, Sridharan G. Viral infections of the CNS: The unraveling of the Mystery. Sri Ramachandra Journal of Medicine 2016 9(1): 15-23.
26. Subramanian Suganya, Balaji Nandagopal and Anand Anbarasu. Natural Inhibitors of HMG-CoA Reductase—An Insilico Approach Through Molecular Docking and Simulation Studies. Journal of Cellular Biochemistry. 2017 Jan;118(1):52-57.
27. Sathish Sankar*, Mageshbabu Ramamurthy, Balaji Nandagopal, Gopalan Sridharan. T-cell epitopes predicted from the Nucleocapsidprotein of Sin Nombre virus restricted to 30 HLAalleles common to the North American population. Bioinformation 2017 Mar 31;13(3):94-100.
28. Sagadevan Kalaiselvan, Sathish Sankar, Mageshbabu Ramamurthy,* Asit Ranjan Ghosh, Balaji Nandagopal and Gopalan Sridharan. Prediction of B Cell Epitopes Among Hantavirus Strains Causing Hemorragic Fever With Renal Syndrome. Journal of Cellular Biochemistry. 2017 May;118(5):1182-1188.
29. Sathish Sankar*, Mageshbabu Ramamurthy, Balaji Nandagopal, Gopalan Sridharan. Short peptide epitope design from hantaviruses causing HFRS. Bioinformation. 2017 Jul 31;13(7):231-236.
30. Sagadevan Kalaiselvan, Sathish Sankar,* Mageshbabu Ramamurthy, Asit Ranjan Ghosh, Balaji Nandagopal and Gopalan Sridharan. Prediction of Pan-Specific B-Cell Epitopes From Nucleocapsid Protein of Hantaviruses CausingHantavirus Cardiopulmonary Syndrome. Journal of Cellular Biochemistry. 2017 Aug;118(8):2320-2324.
31. Kumaran Vadivel, Mageshbabu Ramamurthy, Sathish Sankar, Amita Jain, Padma Srikanth, Asit Ranjan Ghosh, Balaji Nandagopal, Aravindan Nair and Gopalan Sridharan. Development & standardization of an in-house IgM indirect ELISA for the detection of parvovirus B19 infections. Indian Journal of Medical Research. 2017 Sep;146(3):381-385.
32. Subramanian Suganya, Subapriya Natarajan, Duraipandian Chamundeeswari, Anand Anbarasu, Kunissery A. Balasubramanian, Lynn C. Schneider, Balaji Nandagopal. Clinical Evaluation of a Polyherbal Nutritional Supplement in Dyslipidemic Volunteers. Journal of Dietary Supplements. 2017 Nov 2;14(6):679-690.
33. Sathish Sankar*, Mageshbabu Ramamurthy, Balaji Nandagopal, Gopalan Sridharan. In Silico Validation of D7 Salivary Protein-derived B- and T-cell Epitopes of Aedes aegypti as Potential Vaccine to Prevent Transmission of Flaviviruses and Togaviruses to Humans. Bioinformation. 2017 Nov 30;13(11):366-375.
34. Mageshbabu Ramamurthy*, Sathish Sankar, Balaji Nandagopal, Gopalan Sridharan, Arun R.Risbud. Viral Diseases of Public Health Importance in India: Current Priorities with Special Emphasis on Prevention. The Journal of Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences University. 2017 October-December,Vol. 6, No. 4, page no. 1-11.
35. Mageshbabu Ramamurthy, SathishSankar, Rajesh Kannangai, Balaji Nandagopal1, Gopalan Sridharan. Application of viromics: a new approach to the understanding of viral infections in humans. Virusdisease. 2017 Dec;28(4):349-359.
36. Sathish Sankar, Jayanta Borkakoti, Mageshbabu Ramamurthy, Balaji Nandagopal, Perumal Vivekanandan and Sridharan Gopalan. Identification of tell-tale patterns in the 3′non-coding region of hantaviruses that distinguish HCPS-causing hantaviruses from HFRS-causing hantaviruses. Emerg Microbes & Infections. 2018 Mar 21;7(1):32.
37. Kumaran Vadivel , Ramamurthy Mageshbabu , Sathish Sankar , Amita Jain , Vivekanandan Perumal , Padma Srikanth, Ghosh Asit Ranjan, Aravindan Nair , Eric A F Simoes , Balaji Nandagopal , Gopalan Sridharan. Detection of parvovirus B19 in selected high-risk patient groups & their phylogenetic & selection analysis. Indian Journal of Medical Research. 2018 Apr;147(4):391-399.
38. Sathish Sankar , Mageshbabu Ramamurthy , Subramanian Suganya , Balaji Nandagopal , Gopalan Sridharan. Design of peptide epitope from the neuraminidase protein of influenza A and influenza B towards short peptide vaccine development . Bioinformation. 2018 May 31;14(5):183-189.
39. Suganya Subramanian, Lynn Schneider, Balaji Nandagopal*. Molecular docking studies of potential inhibition of the alcohol dehydrogenease enzyme by phyllanthin, hypophyllanthin and gallic acid.Critical Reviews in Eukaryotic Gene Expression. 2019;29(4):287-294.
40. Sathish Sankar, Nithiyanandan Saravanan, Prashanth Rajendiran, Mageshbabu Ramamurthy , Balaji Nandagopal, Gopalan Sridharan. Identification of B- and T-cell epitopes on HtrA protein of Orientia tsutsugamushi . Journal of Cellular Biochemistry. 2019 Apr;120(4):5869-5879.
41. Mageshbabu Ramamurthy , Sathish Sankar , Asha Mary Abraham , Balaji Nandagopal, Gopalan Sridharan.B cell epitopes in the intrinsically disordered regions of neuraminidase and hemagglutinin proteins of H5N1 and H9N2 avian influenza viruses for peptide-based vaccine development. Journal of Cellular Biochemistry. 2019 Oct;120(10):17534-17544.
42. Veena Vadhini Ramalingam , Suganya Subramanian, G John Fletcher , Priscilla Rupali , George Varghese , Susanne Pulimood , Lakshmanan Jeyaseelan , Balaji Nandagopal , Gopalan Sridharan , Rajesh Kannangai. Interaction of human immunodeficiency virus-1 and human immunodeficiency virus-2 capsid amino acid variants with human tripartite motif 5α protein SPRY domain and its association with pathogenesis. Indian Journal of Medical Microbiology. Oct-Dec 2019;37(4):574-583.
43. Nithiyanandan Saravanan, Prashanth Rajendiran, Sathish Sankar, Mageshbabu Ramamurthy, Mary V Jesudason, George Varghese, Mercy John Idikula, Raja Rajeswari Mangalakumar, Aravindan Nair, Ranganathan Babujanarthanam, Balaji Nandagopal, Gopalan Sridharan. A novel multiplex real-time PCR for the detection of Salmonella Typhi, Salmonella Paratyphi A and Burkholderia pseudomallei in clinical samples. Asian Pacific Journal of Health Sciences. 2019; 6(2):88-95.
44. Nithiyanandan Saravanan, Prashanth Rajendiran, Sathish Sankar, Mageshbabu Ramamurthy, Archana Sasimohan, Vishnu Vineeta, George Varghese, Mercy John Idikula, Mary V Jesudason, Raja Rajeswari Mangalakumar, Aravindan Nair, Ranganathan Babujanarthanam, Balaji Nandagopal, Gopalan Sridharan. Detection of scrub typhus by real-time polymerase chain reaction and immunoglobulin M ELISA among patients with acute febrile illness. Journal of Natural Science, Biology and Medicine. 2020;11( 1):66-71.
45. Ezhil Nilavan, Subapriya Sundar, Mathuravalli Shenbagamoorthy, Harikrishnan Narayanan, Balaji Nandagopal, Ramprasad Srinivasan,Identification of biomarkers for early diagnosis of diabetic nephropathy disease using direct flow through mass spectrometry. Diabetes & Metabolic Syndrome, 21 Oct 2020, 14(6):2073-2078.
46. Nithiyanandan Saravanan, Prashanth Rajendiran, Mageshbabu Ramamurthy*, Balaji Nandagopal, Swarnalatha Purushotham.Identification of b cell epitopes on spike protein (surface glycoprotein) of severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2.World journal of pharmaceutical and medical research, 2021,7(3), 215 –225.
47. Prashanth Rajendiran, Nithiyanandan Saravanan, Mageshbabu Ramamurthy, Sathish Sankar, Nancy David, Aravindan Nair, Rajasekar Aruliah, Balaji Nandagopal, Gopalan Sridharan. Seroprevalence of TORCH-S infections among pregnant woman: A study from Vellore District (South India) Journal of Natural Science, Biology and Medicine (Accepted for publication)
48. Prashanth Rajendiran, Nithiyanandan Saravanan, Mageshbabu Ramamurthy, Sathish Sankar, Rajasekaran Aruliah, Balaji Nandagopal, Gopalan Sridharan. Standardization of in house real-time PCR for the simultaneous detection of TORCH-S (Toxoplasma gondii, rubella virus, cytmegalo virus, Herpes simplex virus 1&2 and Treponema pallidum) infection among pregnant women. (Under review)

Textbook / Textbook Chapters

1. Kannangai R and Sridharan G. In: Dehydroepiandrosterone in Human Immunodeficiency Virus infection monitoring and therapy. Editor:Watson RR. CRC Press, FL, USA 2011
2. Sankar S, Nandagopal B, Ramamurthy M and Sridharan G. Nano Optical Sensors in Virology. In: Optochemical Nano Sensors. Editors: Arregui FJ, Cusano A, Cutolo A, Giordano M. CRC Press, FL, USA 2012..
3. Ramamurthy M, Rajesh Kannangai, Asha Mary Abraham and Gopalan Sridharan. Viral Infections in immunocompromised hosts (Virology textbook of National Academy of Sciences of India).
4. Asha Mary Abraham, G.V. Asokan, Balaji Nandagopal, G. John Fletcher, R. Magesh Babu, Priya Abraham, Sathish Sankar, Shoba Mammen, G. Sridharan. Reviews in Medical and Veterinary Virology, to be published by Scientific Publishers, India for the post-graduate textbook series 21st Century Biology and Agriculture

External Grants

1. ICMR project:: Molecular detection and characterization of human metapneumovirus and human bocavirus in a rural and peri-urban community of Vellore district in Tamil Nadu.
   Status: Completed
2. ICMR Project: Development and evaluation of multiplex PCR for the simultaneous detection of Salmonella typhi, Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Burkholderia pseudomallei for application on clinical samples
   Status: Completed
3. CSIR Project: Molecular epidemiology of Indian strains of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi: a phylogenetic approach by examining the molecular diversity of variable number tandem repeats (VNTR)
   Status: Completed
4. ICMR Project: A search for Parvovirus B19 disease using a polymerase chain reaction assay for viral DNA and IgM determination in certain high-risk clinical conditions among rural and peri-urban population of Vellore District in Tamil Nadu
   Status: Completed
5. ICMR Project: Molecular detection and genotypic characterization of hanta virus in acute febrile illness among rural and peri-urban population of Vellore district, Tamil Nadu by using the Real time reverse transcription PCR assay and nucleotide sequencing
   Status: Completed
6. ICMR Project: “Establishment of molecular detection for Toxoplasma gondii, Rubella virus, Cytomegalovirus, Herpes simplex virus and Treponema pallidum (Syphilis) (TORCH-S) infections by using a real-time PCR to diagnose infections among pregnant woman and high risk babies from rural and peri-urban population of Vellore District in Tamil Nadu”.
   Status: Completed
7. ICMR Project: Development of a novel two-tube multiplex realtime PCR assay to detect seven major PUO agents in children and adults.
   Status: Completed
8. ICMR Project: : Identification and Evaluation of the Immune Response (B and T Cells) to Peptide(s) Derived from TolC protein of Rickettsial Group (Rickettsiaceae) of Pathogens as a Novel Candidate Peptide(s) Vaccine for Human Use.
   Status: Ongoing