• Dr. P. Azhahianambi
  • Scientist

Bio

Azhahianambi Palavesam (Nambi) is currently working as a scientist at TRPVB, TANUVAS. He earned his Bachelor of Veterinary Science (BVSc) at Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (TANUVAS), Chennai in 2001, and his Masters of Veterinary Science (MVSc) and PhD in Veterinary Parasitology from Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI), Izatnagar in 2003 and 2006, respectively. In his PhD work, he pioneered the recombinant tick vaccine study in India by using the yeast expressed Bm86 homologue of Hyalomma anatolicum anatolicum tick, Haa86.

After completing his PhD, Dr.Nambi accepted Postdoctoral Research associate position at Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (formerly, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute), University of Maryland, USA where he worked for 3 years. During that time, he worked on molecular genetics of transposable elements in mosquito & fruit fly and transgenic insect technology. In 2010, he accepted Postdoctoral Research Geneticist (insect) position at USDA-ARS Knipling-Bushland U.S Livestock Insects Research Laboratory, Texas, USA. While at USDA, he worked in the New World Screwworm Eradication program using Sterile Insect Technique. His research involved creation and characterization of transgenic New World Screwworm with female lethal phenotype. He carried out the transgenic screwworm fly experiment in the world’s largest arthropod containment facility (ACL-3) of USDA which is located at Panama. In addition he extensively worked on the microbiome of horn fly using next generation sequencing technology. In 2012, he joined as an Assistant Professor at TANUVAS, Chennai, where he taught veterinary parasitology course to the veterinary students. He successfully completed a TANVAS research corpus fund project on multiplex PCR based diagnosis of dog haemoparasites and obtained two research projects on Theileria annulata virulence factors and lateral flow diagnostic kit for dog haemoparasites funded by Department of Biotechnology.

He was awarded with the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru award for the outstanding post- graduate research in the field of animal biotechnology in 2007 by Indian Council of Agricultural Research. He was also awarded with a Certificate of Appreciation from United States Department of Agriculture for outstanding research accomplishments in the development of a transgenic male-only strain of New World Screwworm. Dr.Nambi haspublished over 30 research papers in refereed journals in the field of veterinary arasitology with the H-index of 14. [ORCID ID: 0000-0002-7108-6767].