Education

Biography

Dr. Vikram Saini was born and brought up in India and received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from University of Delhi, New Delhi, India (2010).  He moved to University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) in August 2010 for his postdoctoral studies and focused his effort to understand the role of environmental and gaseous stimuli to the progression of tuberculosis disease.  Currently Dr. Saini is working as an Instructor at Department of Microbiology, UAB. His research interests include pathogenomics, microbial evolution, tuberculosis disease, infection and metabolism, bacterial drug resistance and development of new drugs. He is a member of Society for Redox Biology and Medicine, and International Society for Infectious Diseases. Dr. Saini has more than 20 publications and book chapters to his credit in peer-reviewed journals

Research Interest

• Environment and infectious diseases
• Nutrition and metabolic disorders
• Microbial pathogenesis
• Evolution and pathogenomics
• Metabolism and bioenergetics
• Tuberculosis

Professional Activities:

ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS

AWARDS/HONORS

• Society for Free Radical Biology and Medicine (SFRBM) Young Investigator’s award  22nd Annual SFRBM Meeting in Boston, USA (November 18-21, 2015).
• Visiting Scientist at KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for TB and HIV and University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in Durban, South Africa (May27-June 23, 2015).
• UAB Post-doctoral Association Travel Award for Society for Free Radical Biology and Medicine (SFRBM) Meeting in Seattle, Washington, USA (2015).
• SFRBM Travel Award for 21st Annual SFRBM Meeting in Seattle, Washington, USA (November 19-23, 2014)
• UAB Center for Free Radical Biology Travel Award for 21st Annual SFRBM Meeting Seattle, Washington, USA (2014).
• Postdoctoral Scholars Award, UAB: The Office of Post-doctoral Education (2013).
• Society for Free Radical Biology and Medicine Travel Award for 20th Annual SFRBM Meeting in San Antonio, Texas, USA (November 20-24, 2013).
• UAB Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development Award for the NIH sponsored 1st Annual Workshop on Metabolomics (2013).
• American Lung Association (ALA) Senior Research Training Fellowship (2012-2014).
• UAB Post-doctoral Association Travel Award for Keystone symposium in Kampala, Uganda (2012).
• National Institutes of Health (NIH) Travel Award for Keystone symposium in Kampala, Uganda (2012).
• Visiting Scientist at the Desmund Tutu Centre for Excellence in Tuberculosis and HIV Research, University of Stellenbosch Medical School, Cape Town, South Africa (July 16-July 26) (2011).
• Visiting Scientist at KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for TB and HIV and University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in Durban, South Africa (July 4-July 15) (2011).
• Visiting Scientist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University (June 5- June 25) (2011).
• The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Global Health Travel Award in Infectious Diseases (2008).
• Senior Research Fellowship from Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, Govt. of India (2006-2009)
• Junior Research Fellowship from Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, Govt. of India (2004-2006)
• Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) in Life Sciences- All India Rank 44; Percentile 98.71 (2003).
• ‘Role of Honor’ for academic excellence at Government College, Jind (Kurukshetra University, India) (2001).
• ‘Award of Merit’ in Higher Education by Kurukshetra University, India for all round excellence in Education (academics, sports and youth and social welfare) (1998-2003).
• ‘Award of College Crest’ during degree program for academic excellence Government College, Jind (Kurukshetra University, India) (1998-2001).

Publications

Select publications

1. Saini V, Berwal R, Sharma J, Singh A (2004).  Biofertilizers: Current Status and Perspectives in agriculture. Poll Res. vol. 23(4): 665-76.
2. Ahmed N*, Saini V*, Raghuvanshi S, Khurana JP, Tyagi Akhilesh K, Tyagi Anil K, Hasnain SE (2007). Molecular analysis of a leprosy immunotherapeutic bacillus provides insights into Mycobacterium evolution. PLoS ONE 2 (10): e968. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000968.). (8 pages) Sciencedaily.com: Indian Bug Is the Ancestor of Crohn's Disease Pathogen.
3. Talwar GP, Ahmed N, Saini V (2008). The use of the name Mycobacterium w for the leprosy immunotherapeutic bacillus creates confusion with M. tuberculosis-W (Beijing strain): A suggestion. Infect Genet Evol. Vol. 8(1), 100-101.
4. Saini V, Raghuvanshi S, Ahmed N, Talwar GP, Khurana JP, Hasnain SE ,Tyagi Akhilesh K, Tyagi Anil K (2009). Polyphasic taxonomic analysis establishes Mycobacterium indicus pranii as a distinct species. PLoS ONE 4(7): e6263. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone. 0006263. (10 pages)
5. Saini V, Farhana A, Steyn AJC (2011).  Mycobacterium tuberculosis WhiB3: A novel iron-sulfur cluster protein that regulates redox homeostasis and virulence. Antioxidants and Redox signaling doi:10.1089/ars.2011.4341. Vol 16 (7) 687-697.
6. Kumar A, Farhana A, Guidry L, Saini V, Hondulas M, Steyn AJC (2011).  Redox homeostasis in mycobacteria: the key to tuberculosis control? Expert reviews in Molecular Medicine (13): e39. DOI: 10.1017/S1462399411002079. (25 pages)
7. Farhana A, Saini V, Kumar A, Lancaster J, Steyn AJC (2012). Environmental heme sensor proteins: Implications for understanding bacterial pathogenesis. Antioxidants and Redox signaling doi:10.1089/ars.2012.4613. Vol. 17 (9), 1232-1245.
8. Saini V, Farhana A, Glasgow JN, Steyn AJC (2012). Iron sulfur cluster proteins and microbial regulation: Implications for understanding tuberculosis. Current Opinion in Chemical Biology.  Vol. 16 (1–2), 45–53.
9. Regev D, Surolia R, Karki S, Zolak J, Montes-Worboys A, Oliva O, Guroji P, Saini V, Steyn AJC, Agarwal A and Antony V (2012). Heme oxygenase-1 promotes granuloma development and protects against dissemination of mycobacteria. Laboratory Investigation.  doi:10.1038/labinvest.2012.125. Vol. 92 1541- 1552.
10. Saini V, Raghuvanshi S, Ahmed N, Khurana JP, Hasnain SE ,Tyagi Akhilesh K, Tyagi Anil K (2012). Massive gene acquisitions in Mycobacterium indicus pranii provide a perspective on mycobacterial evolution. Nucleic Acids Res. doi: 10.1093/nar/gks793. Vol 40 (21) 10832-10850. (Selected as a breakthrough article by NAR editorial board representing the top 5% of studies in terms of originality, significance and scientific excellence. Commentary at Nature (India portal): 'Mosaic genome' holds clue to TB, leprosy vaccines). Vaccine news daily.com: Indian scientists use TB-related bacterium to boost TB vaccine
11. Saini V*, Cumming BM*, Guidry L, Lamprecht D, Adamson JH, Reddy VP, Chinta KC, Mazorodze J, Glasgow JN, Richard-Greenblatt M, Gomez-Velasco A, Bach H, Av-Gay Y, Eoh H, Rhee K, Steyn AJC (2016). Ergothioneine maintains redox and bioenergetic homeostasis essential for drug susceptibility and virulence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Cell Reports. Vol 14, 1–14.
12. Chinta K, Saini V, Glasgow J, Mazorodze J, Rahman A, Reddy D, Lancaster J, Steyn AJC.  The emerging role of gasotransmitters in the pathogenesis of tuberculosis. Nitric Oxide (accepted)

BOOK CHAPTERS

1. Sharma J, Saini V, Singh A, Singh Narender (2005) Phyto-remediation of organic pollutants. In: Biotechnological Applications in Environmental Management Ed. by: R.K. Trivedi and Sadhana Sharma. BS Publishers, India ISBN: 81-7800-090-3.
2. Berwal R, Saini V, Sharma J, Gupta S (2005). Ribozyme Technology. For Advances in Biotechnology. Ed.  by Dr. P.C. Trivedi. Agrobios Publishers (India). 395-414.
3. Saini V, Berwal R, Sharma J, Singh A (2005).  Transgenic Plants: The Genetically Modified Food For Thought. For Advances in Biotechnology. Ed. by Dr. P.C. Trivedi. Agrobios Publishers (India). 83-97.
4. Steyn AJ, Mai D, Saini V, Farhana A (2012). Protein-protein interaction in the –omics era: Understanding Mycobacterium tuberculosis function. For Systems Biology of Tuberculosis. Ed. by Prof. John Joe McFadden. Springer Newyork (USA). 79-106
5. Cumming BM, Lamprecht D, Wells RM, Saini V, Mazorodze J, Steyn AJ (2014). The physiology and genetics of oxidative stress in mycobacteria. For Molecular Genetics of Mycobacteria (2nd Edition). Ed. by Prof. William Jacobs and Prof. Graham Hatfull. ASM Press Washington, DC (USA). 299-322.ISBN 9781555818838.