Dr. Soumi Chowdhury | Metagenomics
| Best Researcher Award

Dr. Soumi Chowdhury research centers on medical and environmental microbiology with a primary focus on melioidosis, host–pathogen interactions, and vector biology, integrating molecular, genomic, proteogenomic, immunological, and microbiome-based approaches. Major contributions include comprehensive analyses of the gut microbiome in melioidosis patients, elucidating composition, resistome shifts, and immune–microbial interactions from diagnosis to recovery, as well as identifying clinical predictors of mortality and evaluating diagnostic tools such as serum bilirubin-derived scores, machine-learning–assisted CXR scoring, and ALBI-based differentiation of infectious diseases. Genomic and phylogenomic investigations of Burkholderia pseudomallei strains from clinical and environmental samples have expanded understanding of virulence, epidemiology, and environmental reservoirs in India. Additional work includes retrospective cohort studies addressing antimicrobial resistance patterns, clinical outcomes, and biomarker-based stratification of high-risk cases. Research on sand fly microbiota, proteomes, and paratransgenic potential contributes to advancing knowledge of Leishmania transmission and vector–microbe interactions, while proteogenomic studies uncover novel protein-coding regions in Leishmania species, refining genome annotation and enhancing understanding of parasite biology. Methodological expertise spans microbiome sequencing, metagenomics, cytokine profiling, molecular diagnostics, mass-spectrometry-based proteomics, and immunological assays, supporting multidisciplinary investigations that bridge clinical microbiology, infectious disease epidemiology, and translational pathogen research.