Biography

Dr. Kaushal has been researching various aspects of Mycobacterium tuberculosis virulence, pathogenesis and persistence for about 20 years. Over the last nine years, his laboratory has developed a visible nationally funded nonhuman primate model of TB and TB/AIDS comorbidity. Prior to joining Tulane he conducted post-doctoral research at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD (with visiting fellowship at the Institute for Genomic Research, Rockville, MD) and at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, TN. Prior to that he obtained his PhD from the University of Delhi, South Campus. He is interested in utilizing the NHP model of TB to understand mechanisms of pathogenesis, persistence as well as immunomodulation. Relevant to the TBRU, his laboratory will infect NHPs with Mtb to generate LTBI, perform treatments, collect PBMC and lung cell samples, and perform antigen-specific assays in collaboration with the PIs of Project 1 (Jyothi Rengaranjan and Cheryl Day) and the Immunology core (John Altman, Alex Sette), and in collaboration with co-PI Francois Villinger. In addition to his appointment at the Tulane National Primate Research Center, he is also faculty at Tulane University School of Medicine Department of Microbiology & Immunology and Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care and Director of the TNPRC DNA Microarray and Gene Expression Core.