In August 2018, Texas Biomedical Research Institute President and CEO Larry Schlesinger, MD named Deepak Kaushal, PhD, the new Director of the Southwest National Primate Research Center (SNPRC).
Dr. Kaushal joined SNPRC in January 2019, succeeding the retiring Robert Lanford, PhD As Director of SNPRC, Dr. Kaushal will be responsible for leading a national scientific resource funded by a $40 million National Institutes of Health grant and a team of nearly 150 scientists, veterinarians and animal care professionals.
Dr. Kaushal joins SNPRC after his tenure as Director of the Center for Tuberculosis Research within the Tulane National Primate Research Center (TNPRC) in Covington, La., and Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans.
“We are excited Dr. Kaushal will be joining the Texas Biomed and SNPRC team,” Dr. Schlesinger said. “He is a world-renowned researcher whose focus in tuberculosis and HIV, specifically using nonhuman primates in TB research, is a natural fit with the Institute’s long-term vision of becoming the world leader in infectious disease research.”
Dr. Kaushal brings more than 25 years of experience working to eradicate tuberculosis, which kills more than two million people worldwide each year. Using the macaque nonhuman primate model, Dr. Kaushal’s lab tests new vaccine candidates and new drugs against the disease. A major focus of his research is to study the synergy between TB and HIV-AIDS.
“The opportunity to work in San Antonio is tremendous,” Dr. Kaushal said. “The community has a strong health science center and medical school, a network of higher education that fuels the engine of a research enterprise, strong non-profit organizations such as the Southwest Research Institute and is a vibrant, multicultural city. This is a place where technology, industry and supported research in infectious diseases can grow.”
A Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation supported researcher, Dr. Kaushal brings a portfolio of about $25 million in grant funding to SNPRC and Texas Biomed. He has authored more than 94 journal publications that have been published, are in press, in review or in revision and has presented at more than 66 scientific conferences worldwide.
He holds a PhD in biochemistry and microbiology from the University of Delhi in India and is a member of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Collaboration for TB Vaccine Discovery (CTVD), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation working group on Nonhuman Primate Models and the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG).
