Dr Prabha Desikan

Director Professor, ICMR-BMHRC, Bhopal

Dr Prabha Desikan brings to the Sasakawa- India Leprosy Foundation a synthesis of scientific rigour, public health leadership, and deep personal roots in India’s fight against infectious disease. She has served as Director of ICMR-BMHRC, Bhopal, a 350-bed tertiary-care public hospital and research centre, and has steered its transformation into a postgraduate medical college and a strong pillar of
national health delivery. She established the National Reference Laboratory for Tuberculosis, which today supports and monitors TB diagnostic and follow-up services across Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Goa. Under her leadership. The laboratory has also been designated by CDSCO as a national facility for evaluating in vitro diagnostics, analysers, and instruments for TB detection, upholding regulatory rigour and quality assurance in diagnostic technology nationwide.
Her recent work spans molecular research on Mycobacterium tuberculosis alongside large-scale field studies, bridging laboratory innovation with public health implementation. She has served on numerous national expert committees shaping policy and strengthening India’s diagnostic and surveillance frameworks. Her extensive body of publications reflects a career-long conviction that microbiology must inform public health strategy.
Dr. Prabha Desikan’s connection to this cause runs deeper still. She is the daughter of Dr. K.V. Desikan, the eminent leprologist who pioneered the Survey, Education and Treatment programme that laid the foundation for the NLEP and whose biography she has since authored. Her formative years, spent alongside her parents in their rehabilitation of leprosy patients, continue to inform her lifelong commitment to this work.