Priya Duggal, PhD, MPH

Priya Duggal is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology and International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Director of the Genetic Epidemiology Program. She earned her BA from Wesleyan University and her MPH and PhD from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and completed her post-doctoral fellowship at the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health. She is the Director of the Maryland: Genetics, Epidemiology and Medicine Training program, Director of the Genetic Epidemiology program at Johns Hopkins, and Director of Genetic and Genomic analyses for the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) an NIH funded study of 50,000 children and their parents.

Her primary research interest is on the host genetic susceptibility to infectious disease. She works with adult and pediatric populations within the United States and Internationally to identify host genes associated with parasitic and viral infections as well as diarrheal disease and malnutrition. Her work has led to the identification of loci associated with the infectious diseases: Leishmania, Hepatitis C, HIV, Cryptosporidia, Shigella, and Entamoeba histolytica. More recently her work is on the host genetics of acute flaccid myelitis and poliomyelitis. She has more than 100 peer reviewed publications, and has trained 11 current or former doctoral and post-doctoral scholars.

If interested in participating in the Johns Hopkins Acute Flaccid Myelitis study please contact her directly at [email protected]. This study enrolls individuals with AFM, and their families in a genetic study where their DNA is compared to other cases of AFM, and to their family members. Enrollment in the study is done via phone and mail, no travel is required. DNA is extracted from saliva, using saliva collection tubes.