Staff Profile

Educational Qualification

M.Sc., Ph.D.,

Personal Statement

Dr. K. Rajendran graduated from Bharathidasan University, completed postgraduate studies at Loyola College (Madras University), and earned a PhD in Biostatistics from Jadavpur University. He is Scientist-E and Head of Epidemiology, Statistics, and EDP & IT at ICMR-NIRT. With over 32 years of experience in biomedical research, including diarrhoeal diseases and tuberculosis, he has led study design, data management, and statistical analysis for epidemiological studies, clinical trials, and microbiological research. He has handled ~30 projects and authored 82 publications. His training includes WHO fellowship (Thailand), GIS exposure, and international presentations. His research focuses on climate and TB.

Research Focus

• • Statistics and Bio-Statistics
• • Research methodology
• • TB and climate factors relation
• • TB surveys to assess the burden in different population setting
• • Climate factor statistical models with novel approach

Ongoing projects as Principal investigator

Retrospective observational time series model for Tuberculosis relational impact with climatic factors: Multi-centric study {PI}

Significant Publications

• Rajendran K, Thiruvengadam K, Jayabal L, Selvaraju S, Watson B, Malaisamy M, Nagarajan K, Tripathy SP, Chinnaiyan P, Chandrasekaran P. An influence of dewpoint temperature on the occurrence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis disease inChennai, India. Nature Sci Rep. 2022

Apr 12;12(1):6147.doi:10.1038/s41598-022-10111-4. PMID: 35413979; PMCID: PMC9005621.

• Rajendran K, Sumi A, Bhattachariya MK, Manna B, Sur D, Kobayashi N, Ramamurthy T. Influence of relative humidity in Vibrio cholerae infection: A time series model. Indian J Med Res. 2011 Feb;133(2):138-45.

• Brianna Lindsay, T. Ramamurthy, Sourav Sen Gupta, Yoshifumi Takeda, Krishnan Rajendran,G. Balakrish Nair, and O. Colin Stine. Diarrheagenic Pathogens in Polymicrobial Infections. Emerg Infect Dis. 2011 ; 17( 4) :606-611.

• Constantin de Magny G, Murtugudde R, Sapiano MR, Nizam A, Brown CW, Busalacchi AJ, Yunus M, Nair GB, Gil AI, Lanata CF, Calkins J, Manna B, Rajendran K, Bhattacharya MK, Huq A, Sack RB, Colwell RR. Environmental signatures associated with cholera epidemics. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2008 ;105(46):17676-17681.

• K Rajendran, T.Ramamurthy and S.K. Bhattacharya Log-linear model to asses socioeconomic and environmental factors with childhood diarrhoea using hospital based surveillance J Mod. Appl Stat Methods. 2008 ; 7(1),304-313.

• K Rajendran, T.Ramamurthy and D.Sur. Multinomial Logistic Regression Model to explore the inferential risk age groups for infection caused by Vibrio cholerae in Kolkata, India. J Mod. Appl Stat Methods. 2007; 6(1): 324-330.

• Sumi A, Rajendran K, Ramamurthy T, Krishnan T, Nair GB, Harigane K, Kobayashi N. Effect of temperature, relative humidity and rainfall on rotavirus infections in Kolkata, India. Epidemiol Infect. 2013 Aug; 141(8):1652-61.

• Nair GB, Ramamurthy T, Bhattacharya MK, Krishnan T, Ganguly S, Saha DR, Rajendran K, Manna B, Ghosh M, Okamoto K, Takeda Y. Emerging trends in the etiology of enteric pathogens as evidenced from an active surveillance of hospitalized diarrhoeal patients in Kolkata, India. Gut Pathog. 2010 5;2(1):4.

• Kanungo S, Tsuzuki A, Deen JL , Lopez AL , Rajendran K , Manna B, Sur D, Kim D R, Gupta VK, Ochiai RL, Ali M , Seidlein Lorenz von , Bhattacharya SK , Clemens JD. Verbal autopsy to determine causal, age, and gender mortality patterns in an urban slum in Kolkata, India. Bull World Health Organ.2010

• Selvaraju S, Velayutham B, Rao R, Rade K, Thiruvengadam K, Asthana S, Balachandar R, Bangar SD, Bansal AK, Bhat J, Chopra V, Das D, Dutta S, Devi KR, Dwivedi GR, Kalliath A, Laxmaiah A, Madhukar M, Mahapatra A, Mohanty SS, Rangaraju C, Turuk J, Menon PA, Krishnan R, Singh M, Sekar K, Robinson A, Turuk A, Krishnan NN, Srinivasan N, Rexy C, Suresh M, Hanna LE, Choudhury AH, Parmar M, Ramachandran R, Kumar N, Joshi RP, Narasimhaiah S, Chandrasekaran P, Khan AM, Panda S, Bhargava B; National TB Prevalence Survey Group. Prevalence and factors associated with tuberculosis infection in India. J Infect Public Health. 2023 Oct 13;16(12):2058-2065. doi: 10.1016/j.jiph.2023.10.009. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37948837.

Awards and Honours

1. Awarded W.H.O. fellowship during 2007.

2. Awarded Sapporo medical university fellowship and Invited as Visiting Researcher to Sapporo medical university, Sapporo, Japan during 2008.

3. Acquired Best Scientist Award in climatic Research the Entitled paper “Influence of relative humidity in Vibrio cholerae infection: A Time series model” from an International symposium on “fifty years of discovery of cholera Toxin: A tribute to SN De at Kolkata during October 2009.

Research Profiles