Sekaran Shamala Devi

Sekaran, head of research and development at UCSI Hospital, is a Fellow of the Academy of Science Malaysia (since 2017) and of the Royal Society of Pathologists, London (since 2019). Her main expertise is in infectious diseases, with more than 270 published papers, over 6,000 WoS citations, and a h-index of 42. To date, 24 Masters and 23 PhDs have graduated under her supervision. The main areas of investigation are on Dengue and other infectious organisms. She has received multiple awards for kits developed, owns more than 20 patents, and was awarded Woman Bioinnovator of the year (2008) and “Anugerah Innovasi Negara 2009 for Molecular Diagnostics of Dengue Infections". She investigates the effects of diabetes and obesity on severe dengue, setting up serological assays to differentiate flaviviruses and vaccine development. Recently, she ventured into stem cells for regenerative medicine. She directed the WHO collaborating centre (2003–2007), a member of the faculty committee for postgraduate degrees, counsellor and coordinator for various degree programmes. Sekaran was also the head of the virology diagnostic laboratory at the University Malaya Medical Centre (2001–2007).