Preparedness for Future Pandemics

Dr. Rajeev Varshney is currently serving as the Director of the Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences (DIPAS), Delhi, India. He was Associate Director and Head Technology Management Division prior to assuming the charge of Director. Before moving to DIPAS, he served as Director, Technology Support & Management in the office of the Secretary Department of Defence R&D and Chairman DRDO. Dr Varshney is a postgraduate in biochemistry from Aligarh Muslim University and PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has successfully contributed to the development of mechanism-based drugs for countering radiation injuries. He has also contributed in understanding human responses to high altitude adaptation and maladies using ‘omics’ approaches. Initiated a programme for inclusion of human factors engineering for indigenously developed military platforms. He has been awarded DRDO Spin off award, DRDO Lab-level Technology Group award and the Young Scientist award (twice) for presenting his work in Japan and Italy. He has contributed towards seamless transfer of over 16 technologies developed at DIPAS through LAToT agreements to 132 industries for bulk production and induction of products with users. He played a pivotal role in establishing DIPAS as one of the leading COVID-19 testing laboratories in the country and involved in the research work related to identification of COVID-19 severity biomarkers. He has served as an expert member of DST and ICMR projects advisory committee for funding and is a member of the National Academy of Medical Sciences. He has published several research papers in national/international journals of repute.Dr. Iti Garg is a Senior Scientist at Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences, Ministry of Defence, DRDO, Delhi, India. She did Ph.D (Biochemistry) from Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI-CSIR), Lucknow and worked on filarial vaccine development. She started her career as a biochemist and then moved to molecular biology and cardiovascular diseases with more than twenty years of research experience. In DRDO, she worked in the area of chemical warfare agents (CWA), particularly on nerve agents and her research predominantly focused on the detection of expression of neuro specific genes after CWA exposure. Dr Iti has vast research experience in high altitude-induced maladies which is directly relevant to Indian soldiers stationed at high to extreme altitudes pertaining to various documented complications related to thromboembolic/coagulation disorders. She is working on preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic strategies to combat the disease. Amid the pandemic as a researcher, she worked on various aspects of COVID-19 progression/severity, mainly, the association of the ABO blood group, thrombotic markers, genetic variants and many more which would be helpful to mitigate the severity of the disease. Dr Iti has many publicationsin reputed national/international journals and life member of many scientific societies. She has attended and presented papers in various national and international conferences.Dr. Swati Srivastava is currently serving as a Senior Scientist at Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences (DIPAS), Delhi, India and has been actively engaged in research activities for over 18 years. She did her master’s in environmental biology with a specialization in biotechnology from the Department of Environmental Studies, University of Delhi. Dr. Swati obtained her Ph.D. degree in Environmental Studies from the University of Delhi. She joined DIPAS, Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) as Scientist in 2004 and since then working actively in the field of molecular biology and genomics on several research projects. Her research interests include identification of biomarkers for susceptibility and genetic resistance of human beings to various high-altitude maladies such as venous thrombosis (VT) and high-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) under extreme environmental conditions. She has published several research articles in various reputed national and international journals, including three book chapters. Her research area includes multi-OMICS-based studies on high altitude maladies under which she has identified various potential miRNAs, genomic and exomic variants and methylation patterns that could be useful as early predictive and diagnostic biomarkers for high altitude disease management. Recently, she has been engaged in identification of biomarkers for prediction of COVID-19 susceptibility and severity and has published several research articles related to it. She is a recipient of DRDO Lab-level Technology Group award and Best Research Publication award. Also, she has presented her work at various international conferences. Dr. Swati is a life member of several scientific societies and an active reviewer of many reputed international journals.

• ​1. History of Pandemics? How World dealt with it?.- 2. Pathogenecity and Virulence of Bacteria and Viruses: Crosstalk.- 3. Impact of Geographical landscaping on Disease Spread.- 4. Association of Ethnicity with spread of Disease.- 5. Surviving COVID-19 is half the battle won: Long term effects.- 6. Lifestyle changes required to mitigate effects of Infectious diseases.- 7. Emerging mutations in viruses leading to immune escape.- 8. Regulation of Global spread: Action plan needed.- 9. Financial impact of Pandemic on Society.- 10. Fulfilling gaps in Pandemic Preparedness: Need for Effective early warning systems.- 11. Need for quicker systems for development and evaluation of Vaccines and Drugs.- 12. Psychological impact of Pandemic: Strategies to deal at early stage.- 13. Role of OMICS approaches for futuristic strategies against newer health challenges.- 14. Medical strategies for current pandemic: PROS and CONS.- 15. Two years of COVID-19 pandemic: Lessons learnt.