Soumya Swaminathan (born 2 May 1959) is an Indian

paediatrician Pediatrics ( also spelled ''paediatrics'' or ''pædiatrics'') is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, paediatrics covers many of their youth until the ...

and clinical scientist known for her research on

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...

and HIV. From 2019 to 2022, she served as the chief scientist at the

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of ...

under the leadership of Director General

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus ( ti, ቴዎድሮስ አድሓኖም ገብረኢየሱስ, sometimes spelt ti, ቴድሮስ ኣድሓኖም ገብረየሱስ, label=none; born 3 March 1965) is an Ethiopian public health official, researcher, and ...

. Previously, from October 2017 to March 2019, she was the Deputy Director General of Programmes (DDP) at the

Early life and education

Swaminathan was born in

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

, India. Swaminathan is the daughter of "Father of Green Revolution of India",

M. S. Swaminathan Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan (born 7 August 1925) is an Indian agronomist, agricultural scientist, plant geneticist, administrator and humanitarian. Swaminathan is a global leader of the green revolution. He has been called the main archi ...

and Indian educationalist

Mina Swaminathan Mina Swaminathan ( ta, மீனா சுவாமிநாதன்; 29 March 1933 – 14 March 2022) was an Indian educationist in the field of pre-school education. As a teacher at St. Thomas's School, New Delhi, she developed methods usi ...

. Swaminathan has two siblings, Madhura Swaminathan, a professor of economics at the

Indian Statistical Institute Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) is a higher education and research institute which is recognized as an Institute of National Importance by the 1959 act of the Indian parliament. It grew out of the Statistical Laboratory set up by Prasanta ...

Bangalore Bangalore (), List of renamed places in India, officially Bengaluru (), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan area, metropolitan population of a ...

, and Nithya Swaminathan, a senior lecturer in gender analysis in international development at the

University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution f ...

. Swaminathan received an M.B.B.S. from the

Armed Forces Medical College upright=1.1, AFMC main building The Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) is a leading medical training institute in Pune, India, in the state of Maharashtra. The college is managed by the Indian Armed Forces. Established in May 1948 as a post ...

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

. She has an

M.D. Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated M.D., from the Latin ''Medicinae Doctor'') is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the M.D. denotes a professional degree. ...

in pediatrics from

All India Institute of Medical Sciences The All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) is a group of autonomous government public medical universities of higher education under the jurisdiction of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare , Government of India. These institutes ha ...

in New Delhi. She is a

Diplomate of National Board Diplomate of National Board (DNB) is a Post-graduate Master's degree same as MD/MS degree awarded to the Specialist Doctors in India after completion of three year residency. DNB courses are run and the degrees are awarded by the National Board of ...

from

National Board of Examinations National Board of Examinations (NBE) is an autonomous body under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (India), Government of India, and established in 1975 at New Delhi as a Society under Delhi Society registration act, to standardizing pos ...

. As part of her training, from 1987 to 1989 Swaminathan completed a post-doctoral medical fellowship in neonatology and

pediatric Pediatrics ( also spelled ''paediatrics'' or ''pædiatrics'') is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, paediatrics covers many of their youth until the ...

pulmonology at the

Children's Hospital Los Angeles Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) is a nationally ranked, freestanding acute care children's hospital in the East Hollywood district of Los Angeles, on Sunset Boulevard at the corner of Vermont Avenue. The hospital has been academically affi ...

at the

Keck School of Medicine of USC The Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California teaches and trains physicians, biomedical scientists and other healthcare professionals, conducts medical research, and treats patients. Founded in 1885, it is the second oldest ...

Career

Early career

From 1989 to 1990, Swaminathan was a research fellow (registrar) in the Department of Pediatric Respiratory Diseases at the

University of Leicester , mottoeng = So that they may have life , established = , type = public research university , endowment = £20.0 million , budget = £326 million , chancellor = David Willetts , vice_chancellor = Nishan Canagarajah , head_lab ...

in the United Kingdom. She then worked as a senior research officer (Supernumerary Research Cadre), Cardiopulmonary Medicine Unit, as well as an adjunct associate clinical professor at the Department of Public Health and Family Medicine at

Tufts University School of Medicine The Tufts University School of Medicine is the medical school of Tufts University, a private research university in Massachusetts. It was established in 1893 and is located on the university's health sciences campus in downtown Boston. The '' ...

in New Jersey. In 1992, Swaminathan joined the National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis a/k/a Tuberculosis Research Centre, where she was Coordinator, Neglected Tropical Diseases. She later became the director of the National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis. From 2009 to 2011, Swaminathan was coordinator of the UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases in Geneva. Until 2013, she was director, National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (NIRT) in Chennai. From August 2015 to November 2017, Swaminathan was director general of the

Indian Council of Medical Research The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the apex body in India for the formulation, coordination and promotion of biomedical research, is one of the oldest and largest medical research bodies in the world. The ICMR is funded by the Gove ...

(ICMR) and secretary of the Department of Health Research (Ministry of Health & Family Welfare) for the Government of India.

Career with WHO

From October 2017 to March 2019, Swaminathan was Deputy Director-General of the World Health Organization. In March 2019, Swaminathan became chief scientist of the World Health Organization, where she notably participated in regular twice weekly press briefings on the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. She has urged countries to conduct

whole genome sequencing Whole genome sequencing (WGS), also known as full genome sequencing, complete genome sequencing, or entire genome sequencing, is the process of determining the entirety, or nearly the entirety, of the DNA sequence of an organism's genome at a ...

of the

SARS-CoV-2 Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) is a strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019), the respiratory illness responsible for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The virus previously had a ...

virus more frequently and to upload sequences to the

GISAID GISAID (Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data) is a global science initiative and primary source established in 2008 that provides open access to genomic data of influenza viruses and the coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pan ...

project. In the preparations for the Global Health Summit hosted by the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...

and the

G20 The G20 or Group of Twenty is an intergovernmental forum comprising 19 countries and the European Union (EU). It works to address major issues related to the global economy, such as international financial stability, climate change mitigatio ...

in May 2021, Swaminathan was a member of the event's High Level Scientific Panel.

Selected research

Swaminathan's areas of interest are pediatric and adult

(TB), epidemiology and pathogenesis, and the role of nutrition in HIV-associated TB. While at the National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis in Chennai, Swaminathan started a multi-disciplinary group of clinical, laboratory and behavioural scientists studying various aspects of TB and TB/HIV. Swaminathan along with her colleagues were among the first to scale up the use of molecular diagnostics for TB surveillance and care, to undertake large field trials of community-randomised strategies to deliver TB treatment to underserved populations. She was part of the TB Zero City Project which aimed to create "Islands of elimination" working with local governments, institutions and grassroots associations. In 2021, Swanminathan was also appointed to the Pandemic Preparedness Partnership (PPP), an expert group chaired by

Patrick Vallance Sir Patrick John Thompson Vallance (born 17 March 1960) is a British physician, scientist, and clinical pharmacologist who has worked in both academia and industry. He has served as the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government of the United ...

to advise the G7 presidency held by the

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is ...

of Prime Minister

Boris Johnson Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as F ...

Other activities

* Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, Member of the Board *

Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) is a foundation that takes donations from public, private, philanthropic, and civil society organisations, to finance independent research projects to develop vaccines against emerging ...

(CEPI), Non-Voting Member of the Board * Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP), Non-Voting Member of the Board of Directors * Global Coalition Against TB, Member of the Expert Group * WomenLift Health, Member of the Global Advisory Board

Awards

* 1999: XI National Pediatric Pulmonary Conference, Dr. Keya Lahiri Gold Medal for best paper * 2008: Indian Council of Medical Research, Kshanika Oration Award * 2009: International Union against TB and Lung Diseases, Vice-Chair, HIV section * 2011: Indian Academy of Pediatrics, Fellow * 2011: Indian Association of Applied Microbiologists, Lifetime Achievement Award * 2012: Tamil Nadu Science and Technology Award * 2012: National Academy of Sciences, India, Fellow * 2013: Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, Fellow * 2016: NIPER, ASTRAZENECA research endowment award

Personal life

Swaminathan is married to Ajit Yadav, an orthopedic surgeon.

Selected works and publications

* * *

References

External links

Soumya Swaminathan
at

{{DEFAULTSORT:Swaminathan, Soumya 1959 births All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi alumni COVID-19 researchers Fellows of the National Academy of Medical Sciences HIV/AIDS researchers Indian Council of Medical Research Indian expatriates in England Indian expatriates in the United States Indian medical researchers Indian paediatricians Indian women medical doctors Keck School of Medicine of USC alumni Living people Members of the National Academy of Medicine Scientists from Chennai University of Madras alumni Women pediatricians World Health Organization officials