Rate My Professor Indu Sharma

Dr. Indu Sharma serves as Associate Professor with tenure in the Department of Biological Sciences at Hampton University. She obtained her Ph.D. in Biotechnology and Molecular Parasitology from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India, with a dissertation on the sequence analysis of the 6 kb mitochondrial genome of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium vivax. Additionally, she holds an M.S. in Biotechnology from Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, and a B.S. in Microbiology (Honors) from the University of Delhi. Her career at Hampton University began in 2009 as Genomics Coordinator, advancing to Assistant Professor (2009-2021, including tenure-track from 2014), Associate Professor (2021-2022), and her current position since 2022. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the International Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, New Delhi (2001-2003), and a Visiting Scientist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH, Bethesda, MD (2004-2009).

Dr. Sharma's research focuses on the ecophysiology of marine microbes, particularly those utilizing fucoidan and laminarin as sole carbon sources, employing multi-omics approaches to investigate degradation mechanisms in non-model bacteria such as Cyclobacterium marinum. Her interests encompass marine microbiology, blue carbon degradation, microbial genomics, RNA biology, 16S sequencing, and non-coding RNA in Plasmodium falciparum. She has obtained National Science Foundation funding to implement extended Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (eCURE) in the biology curriculum. Awards include the Ernest Everett Just Fellowship from the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA (2021 and 2022), STAMPS Scholarship (2019, MBL), Scholarship for Microbial Diversity Course (2017, Helmsley Charitable Trust), and First Rank and Gold Medal for her M.S. (1996). Select publications are: Sharma I, et al. Thermo-regulated non-coding RNA and rRNA processing in Plasmodium falciparum. Gene. 2023; Sharma I, et al. In vitro antimalarial activity of novel semisynthetic nocathiacin I antibiotics. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2015; and several draft genome announcements, including Cyclobacterium marinum strain Atlantic-IS (2019).