Javed Agrewala


Javed Naim Agrewala is an Indian immunologist, the Dean of research at Indian Institute of Technology Ropar and the chief scientist and professor at the Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh. Known for his research on Tuberculosis, Agrewala is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies viz. National Academy of Sciences, India, Indian National Science Academy and Indian Academy of Sciences. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Medical Sciences in 2005. He is also a recipient of the National Bioscience Award for Career Development of the Department of Biotechnology.

Biography

Javed N. Agrewala, born in Agra in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, graduated in science from Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University in 1980 and earned a master's degree from the same institution in 1982 after which he did his doctoral studies at Sarojini Naidu Medical College to secure a PhD in 1986. In 1989, he joined Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh as a faculty member and scientist where he has been working since then and serves as the chief scientist and professor. In between, he had two sabbaticals, initially at Royal Postgraduate Medical School of Hammersmith Hospital and later at Trudeau Institute. In 2014, he was short-listed among the three possible candidates to become the vice chancellor of the University of Kashmir but the position eventually went to Khurshid Iqbal Andrabi. At Indian Institute of Technology Ropar he heads the Centre for Biomedical Engineering and serves as the Dean of research. At IMT, he heads a laboratory, The Agrewala Lab, where he hosts a number of researchers and students engaged in the studies on self-adjuvanting peptide vaccines and immunomodulation therapy and serves as a biosafety officer.
Agrawala lives at IMTECH Housing Sector 39-A in Chandigarh.

Legacy

Agrewala's immunological research has been focusing on the host-pathogen interactions and the complex roles played by macrophages and T cells in defense against pathogens. The team led by him studied Caerulomycin A, a pyridine-derived broad-spectrum antibiotic and its immunosuppressive activity, work that is being developed by Nostrum Pharmaceuticals which bought it for a reported 3 million. His studies identified the migratory properties of CD4+ T cell memory and demonstrated that immune response can be regulated by using costimulatory molecules. His team also developed a vaccination process against intracellular parasites. His work has assisted in widening the understanding of Th1 and Th2 cells and their bi-directional regulation. His current research interests are centered on prophylactic and therapeutic aspects of immunity, the causal factors for developing active tuberculosis, the role played by macrophages in protecting the host and nurturing bacteria at the same time, the pathogenesis of M. tuberculosis from infection to clinical disease status and the signal transmissions between macrophages and effector T cells. His studies have been documented by way of a number of articles of which many have been listed by online article repositories such as Google Scholar and ResearchGate. Besides, he has contributed chapters to books published by others and his work has drawn citations in a number of texts.
Agrewala has been involved in clinical investigations such as the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research-sponsored project, Novel Vaccine Delivery Systems that Elicit Robust and Enduring T Cell Memory Responses: Alternatives to BCG Vaccination in Tuberculosis Endemic Regions Grant, under the aegis of Australia-India Strategic Research Fund during 2012–16. He is a member of the senate of Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research, a national institute promoting research-based doctoral or post-doctoral degrees and is an associate editor of BMC Immunology journal. He sits in the editorial board PLoS One and has been associated with journals such as Recent Patents on Anti-Infective Drug Discovery, Amino Acids, European Journal of Immunology, Journal of Neuroimmunology, Infection and Immunity, Clinical and Experimental Immunology, The Journal of Infectious Diseases, Journal of Bacteriology, Journal of Proteome Research, Vaccine , Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, Journal of Medical Microbiology, Cancer Letters, International Immunopharmacology , Experimental Parasitology and Current Science as an editorial board member or reviewer. He serves as an expert member for Indo-Hungarian bilateral program, Nehru Science Postdoctoral Research Fellowship of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and INSPIRE program of the Department of Biotechnology. He is a member of the award selection committee of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize and the scientist selection committee of Indian Institute of Petroleum. Invited speeches or keynote addresses delivered by him include the international conference on biotechnology jointly organized by National Institute of Interdisciplinary Science and Technology and Biotech Research Society of India in November 2015, the inaugural lecture at the 82nd Annual Meeting of the Indian Academy of Sciences in November 2016 and Systems Oncology Conference of Butterfly Cancer Care Foundation in March 2017.

Awards and honors

A Biotechnology Overseas Associate of the Department of Biotechnology and a member of the American Association of Immunologists, Agrewala was elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India in 2004. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research awarded him Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, one of the highest Indian science awards in 2005. and he received the National Bioscience Award for Career Development of the Department of Biotechnology in 2006. He became an elected fellow of the Indian National Science Academy in 2010 and the Indian Academy of Sciences in 2015. He also is a recipient of the New Idea Research Talent Award of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research.

Selected bibliography

Book chapters

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