Director's Profile
Dr. Sanghamitra Pati is a distinguished physician, laboratory scientist, and public health researcher with over 33 years of experience in the field. She began her academic journey by earning an MBBS in 1992 and an MD in 1998 from MKCG Medical College in Berhampur, Odisha, India. In 2000, she was honored with the Joint Japan/World Bank Graduate Scholarship (JJ/WBGSP), which allowed her to pursue a Master of Public Health (MPH) at the University of Maastricht in The Netherlands. She further advanced her education and achieved a Ph.D. from the same university in 2023. Dr. Pati’s leadership roles have been impactful, particularly in her tenure as the Director of the ICMR- National Institute of Health Research, Bhubaneswar (renamed Regional Medical Research Centre in Bhubaneswar) from August 2016-present. In December 2024, she took on the prestigious & responsible role of Additional Director General at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in New Delhi, continuing her significant contributions to public health research and policy.
Needless to mention the crucial role played by Dr. Pati, during the critical time of the COVID-19 pandemic, in leading serosurvelience studies not only in Odisha but also in adjoining states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. She was also instrumental in co-developing the first Make in Odisha rapid Antigen kit for COVID-19 diagnosis.
Her Wellcome Trust funded research is the first in India and any Low and Middle Income Country to assess the burden and impact of multimorbidity (coexistence of multiple chronic illness in a person) in patients attending health care settings. The MAQ-PC tool developed by her is now being used by many researchers across the LMICs to measure multimorbidity. Further, the centre under her leadership is involved in Tuberculosis elimination including the landmark TB vaccine trial among adults. Currently, she is investigating the effect of chronic comorbidity and multimorbidity on the infectious disease risk, progression and outcomes and the prolonged health consequences of COVID-19, Tuberculosis and Malaria. A Distinguished Lown Scholar at Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, she has co-authored 450+ scientific publications in the peer-reviewed journals and co-authored two books on health care and a few book chapters. She has an h-index of 54 and i10-index of 275. She serves as a reviewer for esteemed journals such as The Lancet, PLOS ONE, BMJ Open, BMC Family Practice, and is an editorial board member of the European Journal of Cancer Care and Frontiers in Public Health.
In appreciation of her extraordinary contribution to public health and research, she has been conferred with prestigious awards like Samanta Chandrasekhara Award-2018 by Odisha Bigyan Academy, Devi Award-2020 by the honourable Chief Minister, The President’s Appreciation Award-2020 by Indian Medical Association (IMA), Times Power Women Award-2021, Madhubabu Odisha Gourav Samman Award-2023, Cuttack, Biswamukti Rashtriya Swasthyasewa Samman-2023, Odisha Women Award-2023 by Ever Green Forum and Chief Minister’s Award for Excellence in Healthcare Services, Govt. of Odisha -2024 felicitated by Odisha CSR Forum-2024, Women Achievers award, Rotary, Bhubaneswar-2025 and Femina Achievers, Odisha-2025 and Indian Medical Association HQs Professors-2025. Her extraordinary contribution to Public Health and Research, instrumented in co-developing the first Make in Odisha rapid-antigen kit for Covid-19 diagnosis. Under her leadership, she recently developed an India’s first multistage malaria vaccine (AdFalciVac) against Plasmodium falciparum for preventing infection in human and reducing transmission in community and technology transferred to five Indian companies for further manufacturing, clinical trial and commercialization.
Dr. Pati is a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences (FNASc.), India; National Academy of Medical Sciences (NAMS), India; National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI); the Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP), London; the Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP), Edinburgh; the Royal Society of Public Health (RSPH), UK; and the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) and a few more.
Dr. Pati has been recognized as one of India’s most influential researchers. She was listed among the top 2% of global scientists by updated Science-Wide Author Database of Standardized Citation Indicators published by Stanford University in collaboration with Elsevier.