PROF. DR. SHAMALA DEVI A/P K.C SEKARAN
Department of Medical Microbiology
Faculty of Medicine
shamala@um.edu.my| View CV | |
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Biography
Professor Shamala Devi was born on the 16th of February, 1954 in Johor Bahru. The 3rd of 5 siblings, she completed her primary and secondary education in the Infant Jesus Convent, Johor Bahru. Although she was an avid sportswoman, representing the school and the state of Johor in athletics, hockey and netball, her academic pursuits were never compromised. This was evident in her performance in the MCE examinations, for which she was subsequently awarded an Asean Scholarship in 1971-72 to the National Junior College in Singapore where she completed her A levels. Once again, her excellent academic performance enabled her to pursue an undergraduate degree in University Malaya where she entered a superfresh student in 1973 and was awarded a General degree in Biology in 1975 and a 2nd class (upper) in Genetics in 1976. She then pursued a Masters degree in Genetics and was offered a tutorship in the Department of Genetics. It was during this time that she attended an immunology seminar given by Professor Tikki Pang and the late Prof. John Bosco, and realized her true calling. And from that moment, her career in immunology began.
After being awarded a Masters in Science in 1980, Prof Shamala switched from the Faculty of Science to the Faculty of Medicine where she began her journey into the fascinating world of immunology. She signed up to do her PhD on dengue with Professor Lam Sai Kit and Professor Tikki Pang, from the Department of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, UM. Although she was a part-time student, nonetheless, she set herself a grueling schedule in order to complete her degree in the stipulated time. Her diligence did not go unnoticed, particularly by her supervisors who sent her to the Australian National University for a three month stint in 1983, where she carried out part of her PhD work on T cell cytotoxicity using inbred strains of mice. This resulted in 2 publications in the Australian Journal of Experimental Biology and Medical Science and in Microbiology and Immunology in 1988. She subsequently went on to develop an IgM capture ELISA for the detection of anti-dengue IgM antibodies (Lam et al., 1987) which is still used today as an in-house detection method in the diagnosis of primary dengue infections. Prof Shamala was awarded her PhD in 1986 and remained in the Department of Medical Microbiology as a temporary lecturer until her confirmation on the 21st November 1988. Her initial teaching duties (1998-1999) centered around immunology. However, this rapidly expanded to cover virology, bacteriology and diagnostic microbiology where she headed the Serology unit involved in the diagnosis of PUO infections. Her immense workload over the years and with more than 35 publications she was appointmented as Associate Professor on the 29th of June,1996.
Prof Shamala’s heavy teaching duties, however, did not in any way compromise her research. She was continuously updating herself on the latest techniques and innovations in the field of immunology by going for attachments and sabbaticals in laboratories of eminent immunologists. These included a 6 week stint in Switzerland under a WHO fellowship in 1992, a 9-month sabbatical to Harvard Medical School (sponsored by Petronas) in 1994, University of Tubingen, Germany in 2000, and Colorado State University, USA in 2005.
However, from 1996 onwards, a lack of funding forced her to leave dengue research for a period of time. Undaunted, she proceeded to widen her horizon to successfully delve into research on various infectious diseases including rickesttsia, leptospirosis, CMV, and typhoid fever. These ventures culminated in the supervision of several postgraduate candidates including 2 PhDs, 3 Masters and 1MD and resulted in a total of 13 publications. In addition, she has ongoing research collaboration with Dr. VK Sundram of PORIM, studying the role of palm oil in tumor regression.
In 2004, her successful grant applications enabled her to return to dengue research. It was then, that her research took an interesting turn – molecular diagnostics. And to add another feather to her illustrious cap, she was awarded, in collaboration with Prof Parasakthi Navaratnam, a total of 1.1 million in grants to carry out research on antimicrobial resistance mechanisms and rapid diagnosis of infections by Gram positive cocci. This particular aspect of her research, which was carried out predominantly by 3 PhD students, generated 7 publications, 8 poster presentations,1 poster award, 1 silver award and 3 bronze awards. Today, Prof Sham has 2 full-time Post-doctoral research fellows, 9 PhD candidates, and 2 Masters students. Her continued dedication in both research and teaching led to her appointment as full Professor in 2003.
Her love for research over the past 19 years has reaped its rewards. To date, Prof Shamala has 81 publications, 49 poster presentations and 9 patents. She and her team of researchers have developed 8 diagnostic kits which include Real Time PCR for the detection and quantitation of Cytomegalovirus DNA(2003), Real Time PCR for the detection, serotyping and quantitation of dengue virus RNA(2004) (2 kits),Viro-Enceph Kit : for detection of major viral pathogens that cause encephalitis (2005), Pan-respiratory viral RNA detection by Real Time PCR (2006), and a Human Influenza sub-typing kit (2006).
Prof Shamala has also been given several awards including Excellent Service Award for 2003 and 2004, a Gold Medal by Ministry of Science & Technology, Malaysia (2004), 4 Silver medals by UM (2004), Gold Medal for Invention, Exhibition of New Invention, Techniques and Products 2005,Geneva for the D S Quant Dengue Kit, 1 Silver medal from Biotech Asia Exhibition (2005), 5 Bronze medals from the Research and Innovation Exhibition, UM (2005), 1 Gold medal and 2 Bronze medals from IPTA Research and Development Exhibition (2005), Penghargaan Saintis Cemerlang by the Ministry for Higher Learning (2005), and 1 Silver medal from Malaysian Science and Technology Expo (2006).
Her expertise in the fields of dengue research and immunology have worldwide recognition and have led her to be an invited speaker in several conferences and meetings including PIPOC : International Palm Oil Congress in Kuala Lumpur (2003), Symposium on Dengue Fever and Tuberculosis in Singapore (2004), Asia Pacific Congress of Medical Virology in New Delhi (2006); Asian Dengue Prevention Board Meeting in Colombo, Sri Lanka (2007) and in Bangkok (2007), and the 3rd PDVI Dengue Research Network Meeting in Taiwan (2007). She was also invited to participate in evaluation of dengue diagnostic kits by TDR/WHO (2005-2007) and was responsible for the laboratory diagnostic tests for a multicentre study on clinical dengue infections also organized by WHO/TDR.
In recognition of her prolific contributions in way of publications, Prof Shamala was appointed a member of the Editorial board of four international journals, Journal of Indigenous Research, Journal of Infection in Developing Countries (2007 onwards), Open Virology Journal(2007) and African Journal of Microbiology Research (2007). In addition, she has been asked to review articles from several local and international journals, the most recent ones being from the Asia-Pacific Journal of Public Health (2003-), Infection and Immunity (2003-), Asia Pacific Journal of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (2006-), Virology (2007-), African Journal of Microbiology Research (2007-) and Clinical Chemistry (2007-).
Prof Shamala is a member of several organizations including the American Society for Microbiology and the Malaysian Society of Infectious Diseases and Chemotherapy. She was appointed Treasurer of the Asia Pacific Society for Medical Virology where she served for 3 years (2003-2006) before being appointed the country representative of this society (2007 onwards).
“A sound mind in a sound body” is a principle that Prof Shamala adheres to very strictly. Apart from her weekly yoga sessions, she manages to find time to play her favourite sport, netball. She has been participating actively in the inter-university games for the past 15 years and is still a force to be reckoned with on the netball field. With her overwhelming academic schedule, Professor Shamala still finds time to contribute significantly to society. She has been a Church Community Leader and Guidance Counselor in the St. Francis Xavier Church, Petaling Jaya for over 10 years and has organized short courses in Theology, Spiritual Direction and Inter-Religious Dialogue. She was also the Student Advisor to University Malaya’s Catholic Students Society from 2001 to 2006. But her public service does not end there. She is also an active member of the Section 10 Residents Committee in Petaling Jaya where she has held several posts over the past 10 years including Protem Committee member (1998), Treasurer (1999), Committee member (2000) and Bulletin Coordinator & AssistantSecretary (2002).
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Latest Award
Penyelidikan
Penyelidikan
Year 2016
Latest Evaluation
Article : Antigenic epitope of phospholipase A2 : possibilities of drug development in Journal of cell and animal Biology JCAB-08-04 2008 Article : Antigenic epitope of phospholipase A2 : possibilities of drug development in Journal of cell and animal Biology JCAB-08-04 2008
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Latest Publication
2017
A new paradigm for Aedes spp. surveillance using gravid ovipositing sticky trap and NS1 antigen test kit
2017
Next generation sequencing reveals the antibiotic resistant variants in the genome of Pseudomonas aeruginos
2017
Japanese encephalitis virus disrupts blood-brain barrier andmodulates apoptosis proteins in THBMEC cells.
2017
Dengue Virus NS1 Protein as a Diagnostic Marker: Commercially Available ELISA and Comparison to qRT-PCR and Serological Diagnostic Assays Currently Used by the State of Florida
2014
Dengue Diagnosis :A multi pronged attack
2016
Detection and quantification of Chikungunya virus by real time RT-PCR assay.
2016
Climate change and health: the Malaysia scenario
2016
Molecular epidemiology of CHikungunya virus by sequencing
2011
Evaluation of Phyllanthus, for Its Anti-Cancer Properties,