CCU TEAM MEMBERS
Central Coordinating Unit (CCU)
KEM Hospital Research Centre, Pune
Overview
| Field | PRERNA 1.0 | PRERNA 2.0 | PRERNA 3.0 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duration | Nov 2014 – Nov 2019 | Aug 2019 – Jul 2024 | Oct 2025 – Sep 2030 |
| Young Investigators at site | 5 | 5 | 2 |
| YIs enrolled in doctoral programmes | 3 | 1 | In process |
Young Investigator profiles – PRERNA 3.0
Dr. Pranav Gawande
TAG
The TAG oversees network activities and guides new research: reviewing proposals from PRERNA early career researchers, helping generate new ideas, facilitating collaborations and external funding, and offering mentorship.
It provides an annual in-person overview of programme activities and proposal ideas, plus a half-yearly online review of progress.
Current TAG members
Dr Jose Martines
University of Bergen, Norway
Newborn and child health, nutrition, and implementation research
Dr Gagandeep Kang
Enterics, Diagnostics, Genomics and Epidemiology, Gates Foundation; Christian Medical College, Vellore, India
Vaccines and public health; enteric infectious diseases in children
Dr Anura Kurpad
St John’s Research Institute, Bengaluru
Human nutrition and metabolism, public health nutrition, stable isotope techniques
Prof. Anurag Agrawal
Ashoka University, Delhi
Respiratory biology, health technology, digital health
Late Dr.MK Bhan
(Chair), National Science Professor, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India
Prof. Peter Smith
MRC Tropical Epidemiology Group, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom
Prof. Ramkumar Menon
Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Maternal-Fetal Medicine & Perinatal Research Division, University of Texas Medical Branch, USA
Dr. Olufemi Oladapo
Maternal and Perinatal Health and Preventing Unsafe Abortion, Department of Reproductive Health and Research, World Health Organization, Switzerland
Complementary strengths across three sites
New Delhi
Society for Applied Studies (SAS)
Nutritional epidemiology, early childhood growth and development, mental health and cognitive sciences, economic evaluation, implementation sciences.
SAS has extensive experience in implementation research and qualitative research methodologies, contributing to the translation of evidence-based interventions into practice.
SAS primarily works with urban populations in Delhi and rural Haryana, providing insights into challenges specific to densely populated urban and rural environments.
Vellore
Christian Medical College (CMC)
As a leading tertiary medical institute, it has access to a wide range of specialty and super-specialty departments.
The Wellcome GI Sciences Laboratory at CMC, Vellore, provides a standardised setup and expertise for research on gastrointestinal infections, immunology, and related areas.
CMC engages with urban and tribal populations in Vellore, enabling research in diverse demographic and geographic settings.
Pune
KEM Health Research Centre (KEMHRC)
Vaccine clinical research, including the design, implementation, and evaluation of regulatory vaccine studies; infectious disease epidemiology including community and hospital-based surveillance studies, anaemia and malnutrition, chronic respiratory disease, and implementation research.
KEMHRC excels in implementation of large scale regulatory clinical trials including vaccine clinical trials, community-based surveillance studies disease burden and implementation research in the domain of maternal and child health. It has strong collaborations with the local public health system and works in close collaboration with them.
KEMHRC is affiliated to a 650 bedded tertiary care hospital and has two community-based departments ― Vadu Rural Health Programme (VRHP), and the Community Health Research Unit (CHRU) ― that work with the rural population near Pune. KEMHRC has dedicated research laboratories, bio repositories, data management services for high quality research.
The institute has a long-standing presence in rural and tribal areas of Maharashtra, facilitating research in underserved populations. VRHP and CHRU, which work in three blocks of Pune district, have access to a rural and tribal population of over 1 million in Western Maharashtra. VRHP hosts a well-established core vaccine research unit capable of conducting multi-centric, large-scale clinical trials for vaccines, while CHRU has a field-based team trained in implementation of community-based studies in nutrition and implementation research.