Nishi Suryavanshi, PhD

Pune, India

Role:

Staff

Clinical Research Site Coordinator, Deputy Director, BJGMC Clinical Research Site; Research Associate, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Dr. Suryavanshi is Clinical Research Site Coordinator and Deputy Director for the BJGMC-JHU CRS in Pune, India. She has 18 years of experience working in the ACTG and IMPAACT networks as a protocol team member, site co-investigator and lead behavioral science studies in TB, HIV, mental helath, substance use, and women’s health.In addition, she has been instrumental in implementing large NIH funded research projects with strong leadership qualities and site management skills.

Dr. Suryavanshi has established extensive networks with regional non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and local TB and HIV programs. She has developed and co-developed various social and behavioural projects. During the past 22 years, she has overseen the clinical research studies related to HIV/AIDS and TB at of BJGMC-JHU Clinical research site in Pune, India.

Dr. Suryavanshi completed a CDC grant to enhance the capacity of outreach workers catering to HIV-infected pregnant women to uptake PMTCT services using mHealth platform. She is leading a Hybrid trail for Alcohol reduction intervention among HIV and HIV/TB patients at two sites in Pune, India, an operational project assessing the implementation of 3HP TB preventive therapy among People Living with HIV and a longitudinal qualitative study to understand treatment experiences of children with drug resistant TB.

She has been selected as a mentor of the USAID PEER Mentorship program for women in TB research. Currently, she is mentoring 5 junior scientists from Johns Hopkins and Tulane University. She is also serving as a member of the Technical Advisory Committee of Capacity development in HIV and Mental health Research in Asia (D43 grant from Fogarty NIH)· She is Heading Behavioural and Social science Working Group, RePORT India consortium. Leading a training and mentoring committee for the JHUBI Clinical trials unit program. She has presented her work at national and international conferences and has published study findings in peer-reviewed journals with 70+ publications.

Dr. Suryavanshi attended the University of Pune, Maharashtra, India, where she earned her BSc in zoology, her MSc in Medical anthropology, and her Ph.D. in Anthropology. Additionally, she is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University Summer Institute of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, where she studied the ethical issues related to human subjects research in developing countries.

Studies/Projects
Publications

Residual Respiratory Impairment Following Pulmonary Tuberculosis

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2015-09-13

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This study is conducted by the Cohort for Tuberculosis Research by the Indo-US Medical Partnership (C-TRIUMPH) under the Regional Prospective Observational Research for Tuberculosis (RePORT) Network, an international TB consortium. Many TB patients have...

Diagnosis of Tuberculosis Infection and Th1 Immune Response in Pregnant Women in India

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2014-09-01

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This study was terminated April 16, 2018. Tuberculosis (TB) disease is a major cause of mortality among Indian women of reproductive age; approximately 20-50% of women in India are latently infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB). Due to immune...

Impact of Immune Changes of HIV and Stages of Pregnancy on Tuberculosis

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2014-09-01

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This is the Parent Study for CCGHE’s PRACHITI (PRegnancy And CHanges In TuberculosIs) effort. It's supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Purpose: TB is a...

Evaluation of Longitudinal Blood Culture Isolates from BJ Medical College in Pune, India, 2003-2013

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2014-06-16

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This study was terminated July 31, 2014. Antibiotic resistance is a serious global problem and is caused by multiple factors which have led to difficulty in the management of life-threatening, multi-drug resistant (MDR) bacterial bloodstream infections. The knowledge of antibiotic resistance...

ART Study 1: Database: Epidemiology of HIV/AIDS and Associated Comorbidities in a Public Antiretroviral Treatment (ART) Clinic at BJGMC in Pune

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2014-06-14

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Hinduja Hospital

Since 2004, the National AIDS Control Program of India has been rolling out free antiretroviral therapy. Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Government Medical College (BJGMC), located in Pune, India, is now the largest HIV clinic in India, with over 26,000 adult and pediatric patients registered since 2005...

Screening for Gender Based-violence (GBV) and Feasibility and Acceptability of mHealth GBV Screening and Support Tools

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2014-03-26

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This study was terminated February 14, 2017. Gender-based violence (GBV) is a significant public health issue in India, with estimates that over a third of women and girls are impacted at some point in their lifetime. This pilot qualitative study examined the feasibility of enhancing GBV prevention...

Cohort for Tuberculosis Research by the Indo-US Medical Partnership (C-TRIUMPH)

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2013-09-28

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Collaboratively funded by the US NIH, India’s Department of Biotechnology [DBT], and Indian Council of Medical Research, the Cohort for TB Research by the Indo-US Medical Partnership (C-TRIUMPH) is an Indo-US research consortium that is part of RePORT India, a countrywide consortium for TB...

Community Home Based India Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV (COMBIND)

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2013-09-02

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This study ended May 14, 2019. CCGHE is assessing whether equipping Community Health Workers with mobile health technology and involving them in technology training and personal empowerment seminars can help prevent mother-to-child...

Impact of Diabetes on TB Treatment Outcomes

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2013-02-01

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CCGHE, the JHU Center for TB Research and BJGMC have been awarded a $2.5 million dollar NIH grant (2013-2018) to conduct a study to evaluate treatment outcomes among Indian patients with both diabetes mellitus and active TB. This study is assessing the prevalence of impaired glucose or frank...

P1070: Dose-Finding and Pharmacogenetic Study of Efavirenz in HIV-Infected and HIV/TB Co-Infected Infants and Children ≥ 3 Months to < 36 Months of Age

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2008-12-05

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This study ended March 10, 2015. This multi-country trial was conducted in India, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, under the International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials (IMPAACT) Network and funded by the U.S. National Institutes of...

BWI CTU: Baltimore-Washington-India Clinical Trials Unit

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2007-02-02

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Comprising clinical trial sites at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, Whitman Walker Health in Washington, DC, and the BJGMC-CCGHE collaboration in Pune, India, the Baltimore-Washington-India Clinical Trials Unit (BWI-CTU) is one of only 25 international HIV/TB clinical trial sites funded by the...

Mother-to-Child Transmission (MTCT) of HIV: India SWEN Study

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2002-06-07

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This study was officially terminated August 2018. Primary and secondary analyses of the India SWEN study, an NIH-funded phase III randomized controlled trial of an extended nevirapine prophylaxis regimen among 783 HIV-infected pregnant women and their...

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Addressing knowledge gaps and prevention for tuberculosis-infected Indian adults: a vital part of elimination

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2018-05-02

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BMC Infectious Diseases

BMC Infectious Diseases : Our survey among TB patients' household contacts with evidence of recent exposure found that knowledge is poor and families are confused about disease transmission.

Intestinal barrier dysfunction and microbial translocation in HIV-infected pregnant women is associated with preterm birth

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2018-03-24

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Clinical Infectious Diseases

Our results show select immune markers can identify women at higher risk for PTB in HIV-1-infected populations and suggest modulating gut barrier integrity and microbial translocation may affect PTB.

Gender-based violence screening methods preferred by women visiting a public hospital in Pune, India

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2018-01-22

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BMC Womens Health

BMC Womens Health : In our study, 23% of women reported experiencing gender based violence, and 90% reported they had never been asked about it in the healthcare setting.

Prevalence of dysglycemia and clinical presentation of pulmonary tuberculosis in Western India

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2017-12-01

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International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease

Objectives: To estimate the prevalence and risk factors of pre-diabetes mellitus (DM) and DM, and its associations with the clinical presentation of tuberculosis (TB). Design: Screening for DM was conducted among adults (age  18 years) with confirmed TB between December 2013 and...

Household food insecurity is associated with low interferon-gamma levels in pregnant Indian women

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2017-07-01

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International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease

Objective: To determine the association between household food insecurity and interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) levels in pregnancy. Design: Pregnant women in India were administered the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) questionnaire and underwent an IFN-γ release assay...

Maternal syphilis: An independent risk factor for mother to infant human immunodeficiency virus transmission

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2017-06-15

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Sexually Transmitted Diseases

Abstract Syphilis is associated with increased human immunodeficiency virus acquisition and sexual transmission; we examined impact on human immunodeficiency virus mother-to-child transmission among mother-infant pairs enrolled in the India Six-Week Extended-Dose Nevirapine study...

High prevalence of cryptococcal antigenaemia amongst asymptomatic advanced HIV patients in Pune, India

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2017-03-21

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Indian Journal of Medical Microbiology

Methods : A prospective study was conducted in a large public sector ART centre and the inpatient wards of Sassoon Hospital, Pune, India. All consenting patients> 18 years of age with CD4 count <100 cells/mm3 were screened for CrAg by latex agglutination assay. Those with positive CrAg...

Efficacy of six-week extended-dose nevirapine varies by infant birth weight with greatest relative efficacy in low birth weight infants

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2016-09-30

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PLOS One

Low birth weight (LBW), defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as birth weight less than 2500 g, is a significant public health issue in resource-limited settings, particularly in Sub Saharan Africa and South Asia where the estimated annual incidence is 14% and 28–31%, respectively,...

Quantitative IFN-y,IL-2 response and latent tuberculosis test discordance in HIV-infected pregnant women

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2016-06-15

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American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine

Rationale: Pregnant women with latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) are at high risk for development of TB, especially if infected with HIV. Objectives: To assess the performance of LTBI tests in pregnant and postpartum women infected with HIV, investigate the...

Isoniazid hair concentrations in children with tuberculosis: a proof of concept study

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2016-06-01

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International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease

Assessing treatment adherence and quantifying exposure to anti-tuberculosis drugs among children is challenging. We undertook a 'proof of concept' study to assess the drug concentrations of isoniazid (INH) in hair as a therapeutic drug monitoring tool. Children aged <12 years initiated on...

Cohort for Tuberculosis Research by the Indo-US Medical Partnership (C-TRIUMPH): protocol for a multicentric prospective observational study

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2016-02-25

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BMJ Open

Introduction: Tuberculosis disease (TB) remains an important global health threat. An evidence-based response, tailored to local disease epidemiology in high-burden countries, is key to controlling the global TB epidemic. Reliable surrogate biomarkers that predict key active disease and...

Contraceptive use and factors associated with postpartum surgical sterilization among HIV-infected women in Pune, India

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2015-08-21

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Journal of HIV/AIDS & Social Services

The authors desire to better understand contraceptive practices and factors associated with surgical tubal ligation (STL) among HIV-infected women. Secondary data were obtained from HIV-infected women enrolled in a National Institutes of Health–funded clinical trial assessing the efficacy of...

Vitamin D deficiency and risk of postpartum tuberculosis among HIV-infected breastfeeding mothers in India

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2015-03-15

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International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease

Some studies have associated low vitamin D levels with the risk of tuberculosis (TB), but its association in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected mothers in a TB-endemic region has not been well studied. We conducted a nested 1:2 case-control study among HIV-infected mothers in western...

Source case investigation for children with TB disease in Pune, India

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2014-08-27

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Tuberculosis Research and Treatment

Setting. Contact tracing is broadly encouraged for tuberculosis (TB) control. In many high-burden countries, however, little effort is made to identify contacts of newly diagnosed TB patients. This failure puts children, many of whom live in poor crowded communities, at special risk. ...

Impact of maternal hepatitis B virus coinfection on mother-to-child transmission of HIV

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2014-07-15

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HIV Medicine

Objectives: Despite high hepatitis B virus (HBV) endemicity in various resource-limited settings (RLSs), the impact of maternal HIV/HBV coinfection on infant health outcomes has not been defined. We aimed to assess the prevalence of HBV coinfection among HIV-infected pregnant women and its...

Challenges to disclosure of HIV status to perinatally infected children: a study of caregiver perspectives in Pune, India

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2014-06-15

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Journal of Pediatric Infectious Diseases

Effective guidelines around disclosure of HIV status are lacking and limited data from India reveal low rates of HIV disclosure to perinatally infected children. This study, conducted in Pune, India, attempts to understand the experiences of caregivers of perinatally infected children around the...

Pregnancy differentially impacts performance of latent tuberculosis diagnostics in a high-burden setting

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2014-03-21

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PLOS One

Background: Targeted screening for latent TB infection (LTBI) in vulnerable populations is a recommended TB control strategy. Pregnant women are at high risk for developing TB and likely to access healthcare, making pregnancy an important screening opportunity in developing countries. The...

Vitamin D deficiency is common among HIV-infected breastfeeding mothers in Pune, India, but not associated with mother-to-child HIV transmission

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2012-10-01

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HIV Clinical Trials

A recent report from Tanzania demonstrated an increased risk of being HIV infected or of dying at birth among children born to breastfeeding mothers with low baseline vitamin D levels. We conducted a nested case-control study among HIV-infected pregnant women in western India to confirm the...

Impact of maternal human immunodeficiency virus infection on pregnancy and birth outcomes in Pune, India

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2011-12-15

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AIDS Care

Little is known about birth outcomes for HIV-infected women in India. We examine maternal and neonatal birth outcomes in HIV-infected women within the context of enhanced pre-natal care associated with a randomized clinical trial conducted in Pune, India. Birth outcomes of 212 HIV-infected...

High rates of all-cause and gastroenteritis-related hospitalization morbidity and mortality among HIV-exposed Indian infants

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2011-07-15

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BMC Infectious Diseases

Background: HIV-infected and HIV-exposed, uninfected infants experience a high burden of infectious morbidity and mortality. Hospitalization is an important metric for morbidity and is associated with high mortality, yet, little is known about rates and causes of hospitalization among these...

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