Department of Health Research, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India
स्वास्थ्य अनुसंधान विभाग, स्वास्थ्य और परिवार कल्याण मंत्रालय, भारत सरकार
Dr. Deb graduated from NRS Medical College & Hospital, Kolkata in 1990 and served there as a resident house physician in the departments of internal medicine and hematology. He started his research career in 1993 as a Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute of Cholera & Enteric Diseases (NICED), Kolkata, which is one of the premier institutes under Indian Council of Medical Research and is a WHO collaborative center for research and training on diarrheal diseases. In 1999, he received a fellowship from the NIH/Fogarty International Center, USA to pursue doctoral studies in Epidemiology in School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles and earned his PhD in 2006. Since 2002, he is serving NICED as a Senior Research Officer (Scientist 'C') in the Division of Epidemiology.
During his research career, he worked in various capacities in a number of research projects on different aspects diarrheal diseases, including drug trials and trials of different formulations of ORS (hypoosmolar and rice-based) in children and adults. He acted as co-investigator in large community-based vaccine trials for typhoid fever and cholera, and participated in advanced vaccinology courses in Korea and France. As the principal investigator, he worked and supervised in studies related to Haemophilus influenzae type b infections in children, HIV in migrant workers and cholera vaccination in infants. He also served as technical expert in various project development meetings including WHO/TDR meetings and as a consultant of diarrheal disease program of Institute for One World Health, USA. His special interest is in identifying data gaps in important public health areas and conducting methodologically sound studies that can potentially fill-in those gaps and improve the health of the community through planning and formulation of better health actions and policies.
Name | Dr. Alok Kumar Deb |
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Educational Qualification | M.B.B.S, Ph.D. (Epidemiology) |
Designation | Scientist E |
Division | Epidemiology |
Specialization | Epidemiologist |
Date of joining ICMR | 16th December 2002 |
Email : | adeb02@yahoo.com , debak@icmr.org.in |
After his graduation from N.R.S. Medical College & Hospital, Kolkata, Dr. Deb served there as a resident house physician in the departments of Internal Medicine and Hematology till November, 1992. In 1993, he joined this institute as a Senior Research Fellow to work on various aspects of diarrheal diseases. He received NIH/Fogarty Fellowship in 1999 to study Epidemiology at School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), USA and obtained his doctoral degree in Epidemiology from UCLA in 2006. He is serving this institute as a Senior Research Officer in the Epidemiology Division since December, 2002.
During his career, he has been associated with several areas of research, e.g. (a) Studies on diarrheal diseases - clinical and epidemiological studies on Vibrios, especially V. cholerae O139, risk factors analysis, different ORS preparations (hypoosmolar, rice-based) etc., (b) HIV - study on local and migrant factory workers for prevalence of HIV/STIs and risk behaviors, (c) Vaccine trials - community-based trials on typhoid and oral cholera vaccines, and (d) Studies related to estimation of disease burden due to diarrhea and Hib diseases in India.
He attended several national and international trainings and workshops - notably the "Western Conference of the Association for Asian Studies (WCAAS)" [on HIV/AIDS] at California State University, Long Beach, USA in 2000; the "4th International Advanced Course on Vaccinology in Asia- Pacific Regions" at IVI, Seoul, Korea in 2004; Indo-US Joint Programme Workshop on "Children's Environment and Health" in Goa, India in 2005; the "Eighth Advanced Course on Vaccinology (ADVAC 2007)" in France in 2007 etc.
Apart from taking part in a number of short-term national and international workshops and training programmes on GCP and research ethics, he also completed a 3-month course on research ethics entitled "Responsible Conduct of Research" in 2000, conducted by the UCLA School of Medicine, UCLA, Los Angeles, USA.
He regularly delivers lectures on Epidemiology / Biostatistics in the Orientation Programme for new PhD students in the institute, and is a part of the ICMR Partnerships for Schools of Public Health that aims at spreading public health education in India. In 2005. he visited Port Blair, Andaman & Nicobar Islands following tsunami as part of a central high power team to coordinate the relief activities among the affected people.
Dr. Deb's main interest is in community-based studies on diarrhea and HIV, with particular emphasis on studies that are helpful in filling-in the gaps in existing knowledge base. He also has a special interest in undertaking projects that can give newer directions in health planning and policy development.
Funding agencies: