Research

Under the project "Quantitative mapping of environmental to clinical AMR via genomics and DNA barcoding," goal is to track the presence and relative frequency of specific AMR gene variants of local medical significance and to quantitatively estimate their abundance in environmental samples. The core focus of the project is metagenomics-based quantitative mapping of environmental AMR and its comparison with clinically observed resistance variants.

Project Head(s): Dr. Shraddha Karve, Dr. Laasya Samhita

This project is in collaboration with DTH Labs, and aims to evaluate the digital readiness of key healthcare stakeholders such as Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs), Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs), doctors, and Information Assistants (IAs).

Project Head(s): Dr. Jagjit Kaur, Dr. Anurag Agrawal

Dr. Triloks’ research spans across public health, epidemiology, clinical outcomes, and nutrition-related health research. She has made invaluable contribution to interdisciplinary research areas like computational models for food and nutrition through integrating dietary and health data, child mortality risk prediction in low-resource settings, and studies on markers of chronic disease risk.

Project Head(s): Dr. Geeta Trilok-Kumar, Dr. Anurag Agrawal

Dr. Rintu Kutum’s lab focuses on building intelligent and interoperable health data frameworks that transform diverse clinical data into structured, actionable information for clinical research and decision support. His research work mainly based on computational health science which includes augmented health systems, health data interoperability, and AI/ML-driven clinical analytics.

Project Head(s): Dr. Rintu Kutum

Dr Dasgupta’s research focuses on to elucidate the role of lipid and glycolipid metabolites in cancer cells and to understand how their metabolic dysregulation influences the tumour micro environment. Further goal is to identify key metabolites, associated signaling pathways, regulatory mechanisms and molecular interactions that drives tumour progression and to determine the therapeutic response.

Project Head(s): Dr. Ujjaini Dasgupta

This study investigates how disruptions in lipid metabolism influence immune-related cancer cell death during chemotherapy. It aims to understand how changes in lipid metabolism influence the ability of chemotherapy to trigger an immune response against cancer. This whole project can be understood through multiple steps.

Project Head(s): Dr. Ujjaini Dasgupta

This project focuses on understanding how lipid signalling regulates communication between cancer cells and immune cells within the tumour microenvironment, with a particular emphasis on ceramide kinase (CERK). Ceramide kinase plays a critical role in lipid metabolism by converting ceramide into ceramide-1-phosphate, a bioactive lipid that promotes cell survival, inflammation, and migration.

Project Head(s): Dr. Ujjaini Dasgupta

This project aims to repurpose Eliglustat, an FDA-approved inhibitor of UDP-glucose ceramide glucosyltransferase (UGCG), as a novel immunotherapeutic for breast and oral cancers. UGCG is a key enzyme in glycosphingolipid biosynthesis, converting ceramide into glucosylceramide, a mechanism that regulates cell survival, membrane organization, and immune signaling. Dysregulation of this pathway in cancer cells leads to tumour progression, immune evasion, and resistance to therapy.

Project Head(s): Dr. Ujjaini Dasgupta

This project aims to develop a non-invasive liquid biopsy–based diagnostic approach by identifying a unique bioactive lipid signature that can enable early detection and improved clinical management of gallbladder cancer. Using advanced lipidomic and mass spectrometry–based profiling, the study aims to identify and validate a panel of circulating bioactive lipids that distinguish early-stage GBC from healthy individuals and benign gallbladder conditions.

Project Head(s): Dr. Ujjaini Dasgupta

Dr. Ujjaini Dasgupta was awarded the prestigious Lady Tata Grant in 2025 for this project. This project aims to understand how the enzymes ST8SIA1 and ST8SIA4 shape the tumor immune microenvironment in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and to explore whether targeting these enzymes can improve therapeutic responses.

Project Head(s): Dr. Ujjaini Dasgupta

This project aims to develop and integrate innovative genomic and computational technologies to improve the detection, surveillance, and prediction of antimicrobial resistance, ultimately enabling better clinical decision-making and improved patient outcomes. Focus will be on building a customized, India-specific genomic AMR database that encapsulate the genetic diversity and resistance profiles of priority pathogens circulating within the country.

Project Head(s): Dr. Shraddha Karve

Koita Centre for Digital Health at Ashoka is spearheading this project aimed at advancing responsible and trustworthy health AI adoption in India. prAImaan serves as India’s National Platform for Evidence-Based Validation and Benchmarking of Health AI models, ensuring that AI systems used in healthcare are safe, reliable, fair, and clinically meaningful.

Project Head(s): Dr. Anurag Agrawal, Dr. Mary-Anne Hartley

Complementing the prAImaan project, Validating Voice-to-Discrete-Data (V2DD) models also better known as AI scribes focuses on evaluating AI systems that assist in converting doctor–patient conversations into structured digital health records. The initiative aims to build large-scale, multilingual datasets across Indian languages and English, grounded in real-world clinical interactions.

Project Head(s): Dr. Anurag Agrawal