Mandar Paradkar, MBBS, DCH, MPH
Dr. Paradkar is Senior TB Research Manager and Study Coordinator for Johns Hopkins Center for Infectious Diseases in India (JH-CIDI), and is based at the Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Government Medical College-Johns Hopkins University Clinical Research Site (BJGMC-JHU-CRS) in Pune, India. He coordinates the Regional, Prospective, Observational Research in Tuberculosis (RePORT India) studies at the site including: Tuberculosis Research by the Indo-US Medical Partnership (CTRIUMPh) and its several ongoing biomarker substudies, the phase 1 and 2 Common protocol, RICC Pediatric Transcriptomic study (Co-PI); and he was part of TBM Kids clinical trial and its substudies. He is also currently coordinating the Genome Wide Analysis Study (RO1, GWAS, Emory University); the quantiferon study among household contacts of TB patients; the CATALYST (UNITAID) trial studying new child friendly formulations of moxifloxacin and clofazimine; and upcoming phase 1 pediatric trial of pretomanid (P2034, IMPAACT). He is currently the RePORT India Operations Working Group Chair and Junior Investigator in the consortium. He is a pediatrician by training and successfully completed the full time Master of Public Health degree through Cardiff University, UK, under the prestigious Commonwealth Scholarship Program in November, 2015. He rejoined the site in the role of study coordinator in December 2015.
In his current role, he coordinates the activities of aformentioned adult and pediatric TB study teams at the site. These activities involve regulatory documentation and reporting, recruitment of participants, ensuring the conduct of study procedures are in accordance with the study protocol, staff training, QC procedures, and regular communication with the CRS leadership, study laboratories, BJGMC faculty, local authorities for National TB Elemination Programme (NTEP) and the protocol teams on relevant subjects. His research interests are clinical epidemiology of pediatric TB, TBM, HIV-TB co-infection. He has been involved in 3 first-authored and several co-authored publications till date (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Mandar+Paradkar&sort=pubdate).
He completed his medical education in 2007 followed by pediatric post-graduation in 2009, and he worked as a pediatric intensive care registrar at Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital, a tertiary care hospital in Pune till 2010. He then joined the BJMC-CRS in 2010 and worked for four years as a pediatric research clinician for various HIV studies, including the PROMISE study under NIH’s IMPAACT trial network. He also assisted in adult cryptococcal meningitis study under NIH’s ACTG trial network.
Dr. Paradkar was selected as the New Investigator awardee for 2011-12 by the IMPAACT network and received mentorship during the award year by Dr. Charles Mitchel (US based IMPAACT investigator). This award included participation on a network protocol development team (Dose finding, safety, and tolerance study of Raltegravir containing antiretroviral therapy in children), participation on the IMPAACT HIV complications scientific committee, and a grant award for research or training purposes. Dr. Paradkar completed the Clinical Vaccine Trials and Good Clinical Practice certificate course from Johns Hopkins University, attended the annual IMPAACT network meetings in Washington, DC, in 2011 and 2012.
