Vittal Prakash Ponraj, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Associate
Tel: 832-824-8247
Fax: 832-825-1165
BCM: ponraj@bcm.tmc.edu
TCH: vpponraj@texaschildrenshospital.org
Mailing Address:
Texas Children’s Hospital
1102 Bates Avenue
Suite 830, Feigin Center
Houston, TX 77030
Research Interests:
My research interests hovers around genetics, genomics and Molecular pathogenesis of Gram-positive bacteria. My Ph.D research work was on "Clinical Prevalence, Identification and Molecular Characterization of Aminoglycoside resistant Enterococci". Subsequently, during my Postdoctoral research in Dr.Barbara Murray’s laboratory in the Univ. of Texas Medical School, Houston I worked on the Molecular pathogenesis of the gram-positive nosocomial pathogen enterococci with special focus on the E. faecium MSCRAMMs (Microbial Surface Components Recognizing Adhesive Matrix Molecules- cell-wall surface proteins). I used bioinformatics and genetics approach to identify MSCRAMMs and knock-out the genes encoding pilus like proteins to study their role in adhesion and pathogenesis. My current work in Dr.Versalovic’s laboratory will focus on the comparative genomics approach to investigate the probiotic properties of Lactobacillus reuteri strains, followed by targeted mutagenesis strategies to knock-out candidate genes of interest in L. reuteri to study their role in probiosis.
Education/Background:
Post Doctoral Associate, Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital, Houston, TX, May 2008- Present.
Post Doctoral Fellow, Univ. of Texas Medical School, Houston, May 2006- May 2008.
Lecturer, Department of Microbiology, ASRAM Medical College, Eluru, AP, India, Sept. 2005 - April 2006.
Ph.D in Medical Microbiology, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), Pondicherry University, India, April 2006.
Post Graduate Diploma in Bio-Information technology, Pondicherry University, India, 2002.
M.Sc., Microbiology, Madurai Kamaraj University, India, 1997- 1999.
B.Sc., Microbiology,University of Madras, India, 1994- 1997.
Publications:
Sillanpää J, Prakash VP, Nallapareddy SR, Murray BE. Distribution of genes encoding MSCRAMMs and Pili in clinical and natural populations of Enterococcus faecium. J Clin Microbio. 2009 Apr;47(4):896-901.
Sillanpää J, Nallapareddy SR, Prakash VP, Qin X, Höök M, Weinstock GM, Murray BE. Identification and phenotypic characterization of a second collagen adhesin, Scm, and genome-based identification and analysis of 13 other predicted MSCRAMMs, including four distinct pilus loci, in Enterococcus faecium. Microbiology. 2008 Oct;154(Pt 10):3199-211.
Bourgogne A, Garsin DA, Qin X, Singh KV, Sillanpaa J, Yerrapragada S, Ding Y, Dugan-Rocha S, Buhay C, Shen H, Chen G, Williams G, Muzny D, Maadani A, Fox KA, Gioia J, Chen L, Shang Y, Arias CA, Nallapareddy SR, Zhao M, Prakash VP, Chowdhury S, Jiang H, Gibbs RA, Murray BE, Highlander SK, Weinstock GM. Large scale variation in Enterococcus faecalis illustrated by the genome analysis of strain OG1RF. Genome Biol. 2008;9(7):R110.
Prakash VP, Rao SR, Parija SC. Emergence of unusual species of enterococci causing infections, South India. BMC Infect Dis. 2005 Mar 17;5(1):14.
Abstracts:
Vittal P. Prakash, Jouko Sillanpää, Sreedhar R. Nallapareddy, Xiang Qin, Magnus Hook, George M. Weinstock, Barbara E. Murray. Identification and Distribution of Genes Encoding Putative MSCRAMM Proteins of Enterococcus faecium. Molecular Basis of Infectious Diseases (MBID) Retreat 2008, Texas A&M Institute of Biosciences and Technology, Houston, March 28, 2008.
Vittal P Prakash, Rao SR, Ray MK, Parija SC. Prevalence and transferability of virulence traits, and biofilm formation among E. faecalis. II International ASM-FEMS Conference on Enterococci, Helsingor, Denmark, August, 28-31st, 2005.
Vittal P Prakash, Rao SR, Ray MK, Parija SC. Plasmids and Sex Pheromone response of High Level Aminoglycoside Resistant Enterococci. III Winter Symposia (International) on Infection and immunity, Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, India, Dec 16th and 17th, 2004. Awarded Third Prize for the Best Poster.
Vittal P Prakash, Rao SR, Parija SC . Heterogeneity of Plasmids among High Level Aminoglycoside Resistant Enterococci. XXVIII National conference of Indian Association of Medical Microbiologists, Lucknow, India, Nov 25th-28th, 2004.
Vittal P Prakash, Rao SR, Parija SC. Sex Pheromone Response of Plasmids in High Level Aminoglycoside Resistant E. faecalis. XXVIII National conference of Indian Association of Medical Microbiologists, Lucknow, India, Nov 25th-28th, 2004.
Vittal P Prakash, Rao SR, Parija SC. Molecular Phenotyping of Atypical Enterococcus species. XXVII National conference of Indian Association of Medical Microbiologists, Mumbai, Nov 5th-9th,, 2003.
Vittal P Prakash, Rao SR, Parija SC. Incidence and Characterization of Hemolysin/ Bacteriocin as a determinant of Virulence among Enterococci. XXVII National conference of Indian Association of Medical Microbiologists, Mumbai, India, Nov 5th-9th, 2003.
Vittal P Prakash, Muthukumaravel. Application of Bioflocculants for Green Algal Recovery from Water Refusals. XXXIX National Conference of Association of Microbiologists of India, Mangalore, India, Dec. 5th & 6th, 1998.
Links of Interest:
American Society for Microbiology: http://www.asm.org/
Centers for Disease Control: http://www.cdc.gov/