Prof SR Vyas Memorial Award for PU don

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 13

Prof SR Vyas Memorial Award was conferred on Prof Praveen Rishi, Department of Microbiology and former Dean, Faculty of Science, Panjab University (PU), during the 59th Annual Conference of Association of Microbiologists of India, held at University of Hyderabad from December 8 to 12, for her contributions to microbiology.

The award includes a citation, certificate and a cash prize of Rs 20,000. Prof Rishi has multiple research interests with core research programmes in medical microbiology. Her work revealed for the first time that cadmium acquired by salmonella from the environment was one of the factors for enhanced antibiotic resistance of the pathogen.

She has also reported that: “In the presence of anti-microbial peptides salmonella is rendered sensitive to the antibiotics to which it is otherwise resistant.”

In the field of diagnostic microbiology, she developed antibody prototypes in collaboration with CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology (IMTECH), Chandigarh, for detection of

salmonella in environmental samples as well as to diagnose typhoid fever.

In this context, she has filed patents and has already signed an MoU with the industry to develop the diagnostic kit. She has 125 research publications to her credit and has already been a Fellow of Academy of Microbiological Sciences, India (FAMSc) as well as of Indian Association of Biomedical Scientists (FABMS).