Prof. E. M. Shankar

Prof. E. M. Shankar

Name: Prof. E. M. Shankar
Designation: Professor
Phone: 04366-277230
Email: shankarem@cutn.ac.in

 

Biographic Sketch:
Dr. Shankar is a Professor of Immunology and Microbiology at the Department of Biotechnology at the Central University of Tamil Nadu, Thiruvarur since 2016. He is an alumnus of PG Institute of Basic Medical Sciences (PG IBMS), Chennai. His team investigates anti-pathogen immunity and inflammation, with a focus on identification of novel immune biomarkers, development of functional modalities against chronic viral infections, and immune monitoring in viral infections. As a post-doctoral scientist at the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Linkoping University, Sweden, he has worked on dendritic cell-T cell interactions in the context of HIV infection (https://liu.se/). He has worked as an Associate Professor at the Department of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya Medical Center (UMMC), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 2011-16 (https://www.ummc.edu.my/). He has published over 160 peer-reviewed ISI publications till date with an h-index of 40 and an i10-index of 105 on Google Scholar (with about 5000 citations) (https://scholar.google.com.my/citations?user=eEOGooMAAAAJ&hl=sv). He is serving on the Editorial Boards of leading biomedical journals such as Frontiers in Immunology, Frontiers in Microbiology, PLoS One, BMC Infectious Diseases, Medicine and BMC Immunology as an Associate/Academic Editor. He is a certified Medical Microbiologist, and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists, United Kingdom (https://www.rcpath.org/). Shankar is a recipient of the Outstanding Research Scientist Award by the Antiviral Research Society (AVRS), India in 2022.

   
Research Highlights :

Immune checkpoints (ICM) are key components of T cell exhaustion. Chronically infecting viral pathogens like HIV, HCV and HBV exploit ICMs for their advantage to downplay optimal immune responses, leading to chronic disease. Our Infection and Inflammation focuses primarily to explore into the quality of T-cell responses in chronic viral infections. Intervention measures to identify critical biomarkers of immune regulation in chronic viral infection remains an ongoing research portfolio at DBT-CUTN.



Recent Publications :

Selvavinayagam ST, Karishma SJ, Kannan H, Yong YK, Suvaithenamudhan S, Rajeshkumar M, Aswathy B, Kalaivani V, Kalpana R, Kumaresan A, Jayapal P, Kannan M, Gopalan N, Samudi C, Vignesh R, Murugesan A, Anshad AR, Ganesh B, Joseph N, Babu H, Govindaraj S, Larsson M, Kandasamy SL, Palani S, Singh K, Byrareddy S, Velu V, Shankar EM, Raju S. Clinical characteristics and novel mutations of omicron subvariant XBB in Tamil Nadu, India - A cohort study. The Lancet Regional Health - Southeast Asia 2023 (in press) (ISSN: 2772-3682)

Vimali J, Yong YK, Murugesan A, Ashwin R, Balakrishnan P, Raju S, Velu V, Larsson M, Shankar EM. Surrogate biomarkers of disease progression in human pegivirus seropositive human immunodeficiency virus-infected individuals. Viral Immunology 2023, 36(1):55-62. doi: 10.1089/vim.2022.0144 (IF: 2.175) (ISSN: 1557-8976)

Vimali J, Yong YK, Murugesan A, Vishnupriya K, Ashwin R, Daniel EA, Balakrishnan P, Raju S, Mohamed R, Velu V, Larsson M, Shankar EM. Plasma interleukin-7 correlation with human immunodeficiency virus RNA and CD4+ T cell counts, and interleukin-5 with circulating hepatitis B virus DNA levels may have implications in viral control. Frontiers in Medicine 2022, 9: 1019230. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2022.1019230 (IF: 5.058) (ISSN: 2296-858X)

Selvavinayagam ST, Yong YK, Joseph N, Hemashree K, Tan HY, Zhang Y, Rajeshkumar M, Kumaresan A, Kalpana R, Kalaivani V, Monika AVD, Suvaithenamudhan S, Kannan M, Murugesan A, Narayanasamy K, Palani S, Larsson M, Shankar EM, Raju S. Low SARS-CoV-2 viral load among vaccinated individuals infected with Delta B.1.617.2 and Omicron BA.1.1.529 but not with Omicron BA.1.1 and BA.2 variants. Frontiers in Public Health 2022, 10:1018399. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.1018399 (IF: 6.461) (ISSN: 2296-2565)

Wong S-W, Ting Y-W, Yong Y-K, Tan H-Y, Barathan M, Riazalhosseini B, Bee CJ, Tee K-K, Larsson M, Velu V, Shankar EM, Mohamed R. Chronic inflammation involves CCL11 and IL-13 to facilitate the development of liver cirrhosis and fibrosis in chronic hepatitis B virus infection. Scandinavian Journal of Clinical and Laboratory Investigation 2021, 81:147-159. doi: 10.1080/00365513.2021.1876245 (IF: 2.209) (ISSN: 0036-5513)

Bhattacharya P, Ellegard R, Khalid M, Svanberg C, Govender M, Keita AV, Soderholm JD, Myrelid P, Shankar EM, Nystrom S, Larsson M. Complement opsonization of HIV affects primary infection of human colorectal mucosa and subsequent activation of T cells. eLife 2020, 9: e57869. doi: 10.7554/eLife.57869 (IF: 8.713) (ISSN: 2050-084X)

Ansari AW, Ahmad F, Shankar EM, Yong YK, Tan HY, Jacobs R, Larsson M, Velu V, Kamarulzaman A, Schmidt RE. Diminished coinhibitory molecule 2B4 expression is associated with preserved iNKT cell phenotype in HIV long-term nonprogressors. Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes 2020, 85(1):73-78. doi: 10.1097/QAI.0000000000002399 (IF: 3.771) (ISSN: 1525-4135)

Velu V, Vignesh R, Shankar EM, Thyagarajan SP. Is herd immunity against SARS-CoV-2 a silver lining? Frontiers in Immunology 2020, 11:586781. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2020.586781 (IF: 8.786) (ISSN: 1664-3224)



Select Language