Future Leaders program

Mariana is a PhD-trained bioinformatician specializing in systems immunology and also an Associate Professor of Precision Medicine, School of Medicine, Medicina Zarns, Salvador, Brazil. Her research is focused on uncovering the mechanisms driving TB pathogenesis and treatment outcomes. As an investigator within the RePORT-Brazil initiative, she concentrates on studying soluble inflammatory biomarkers to better understand the immunological and genetic factors that contribute to therapeutic failure in TB.

In terms of greater research interests, Mariana reports, that “my goal is to advance TB research by utilizing cutting-edge multi-omics approaches and systems biology/immunology tools. I aim to enhance our understanding of the pathophysiology of TB infection, particularly from the perspective of the immune system. Additionally, I want to unravel the various endotypes of TB infection and its progression while identifying predictive biomarkers associated with TB advancement.” She also wants to develop a multidisciplinary program focused on identifying predictive biomarkers and developing personalized medicine tools to improve clinical care and contribute to the global fight against TB and other infections.

Mariana has had extensive leadership experience as a principal investigator, mentor, and academician. She hopes to gain better global business communication skills, foster a positive respectful, and collaborative team environment, and enhance her mentoring capabilities. In other words, as well-stated by Mariana, that she wants to “Strengthen her skills in leading multidisciplinary teams, inspire partnerships, and address conflicts constructively to maintain harmony and productivity.”

Prudhula has a PhD in biotechnology and has been working on the immunology of TB and HIV. She is a Project Scientist in the Immunology and Molecular Biology Department at Bhagwan Mahavir Medical Research Centre in Hyderabad, India. Prudhula specializes in the identification of biomarkers for TB progression in high-risk individuals like household contacts, people living with HIV patients, and children in cohort studies in India.

Prudhula’s main research interest is understanding the dynamics of immune cells and the underlying mechanisms involved in an individual’s susceptibility to TB in human household contact cohorts. She states, “In one of our cohort studies we established that adolescent/young adults with a certain hormone deficiency were at risk of developing TB. We also found that certain metabolites enhance innate resistance to M. tuberculosis infection. Identifying these biomarkers to predict activation of TB in high risk populations would ensure targeted prophylaxis to decrease TB burden globally.” During her doctoral work, Prudhula has developed an in-vitro assay, in-house IGRA making use of M. tuberculosis antigens to detect LTBI among HIV patients and healthy controls. Using this assay, she observed that certain cytokines, chemokines, and metabolites render individuals susceptible to TB and published the results in four first author manuscripts.

In additional to her research, Prudhula hopes “to develop the ability to form and address research ideas independently, lead while being a team player, understand the current trends in TB research globally, and to enhance networking, funding opportunity decision-making, and grant writing skills.” She also wants to boost her data analysis and interpretation experience.

John Carlo (also known as JC) was enthusiastic about TB from his earliest training days. “When I was still a student in the MD-PhD program, I got exposed to the real-life burden of TB because many of our patients had TB either as a primary diagnosis or a concomitant disease. That’s where my interest in TB really started. I decided to work on TB research for my dissertation, focusing on the molecular epidemiology of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from TB/HIV co-infected patients in the Philippines.”

Through RePORT International, JC’s research interests expanded to TB biomarker discovery and validation for diagnostics development. In 2024, he happened to be part of the pioneer batch of young researchers who were accepted to the RePORT International Junior Investigators Laboratory Training Program, where he learned and developed skills on microfluidic gene expression, Luminex and NanoString platforms, and importantly, bioinformatics skills needed for analysis of data from such platforms.

“Being involved in RePORT International helps me broaden my perspective on TB research. I aim to contribute, to advancing TB science in the Philippines by taking an active part in local and cross-consortium collaborative research initiatives, such as biomarker validation, and understanding host-pathogen interactions through a multi-omics approach, among others. It is also my dream and goal to establish a separate laboratory space for RePORT Philippines that is dedicated to TB research and development initiatives,” mentioned JC. Within the FLP, he hopes to develop further his leadership skills, particularly on leadership communication, collaboration, research management and grant writing.