Nischay Mishra, PhD is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the Columbia University’ Center for Infection and Immunity. Mishra is a virologist and molecular biologist with over 20 years of experience at the Center for Infection and Immunity (CII) in emerging infectious diseases, investigation of host and virus determinants of zoonotic virus spillover, high-throughput sequencing and serology, viral metagenomics, pathogen discovery, viral evolution, pandemic response and preparedness, and role of microbial infections in chronic diseases like ME/CFS, Long-Covid, Alzheimer’s disease, MIS-C, and unexplained neurological infections. His work includes two FDA EUA diagnostic devices for SARS-CoV-2 & Zika viruses, and ten patents, with other advance molecular and serological diagnostic inventions in the pipeline. Mishra was pivotal in developing and validating the patented VirCapSeq-VERT (link) and BacCapSeq (link) methods for detecting viruses and bacteria. These technologies provide the foundation for capture sequencing for the CII's Global Alliance for Preventing Pandemics (GAPP).
Mishra discovered Rickettsia and several viruses as the causative agents of unexplained acute encephalitis syndrome (link) (AES) in children in India. He also identified and characterized Tilapia lake virus (TiLV), which declared a threat to global food security by UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (link), particularly in low and middle-income countries. Additionally, Mishra discovered New Jersey Polyomavirus (link) as the cause of blindness and myositis in a woman exposed to Superstorm Sandy floodwaters, reported the pathogenicity of human polyomavirus 9 in solid organ transplant recipients (link) , and pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2 in children and immunocompromised patients. Mishra also conducted viral discovery and serology in bats and camels to study origin and evolution of MERS in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Mishra developed high throughput serology platforms for the detection of infection footprints in samples when methods for direct detection of microbial nucleic acids and proteins are no longer applicable. Such examples include determining enterovirus D68 in pediatric cases of acute flaccid myelitis who had no viral sequencings in blood or CSF, Zika virus in microcephaly in offspring of women who had no viral sequencing in blood, Abs against microbial agents in the CSF of pediatric cases of acute encephalitis, and contributions to tick-borne disease serodiagnostics development. Mishra and his team have successfully built high density multiplex serological assays to profile distinctive immune responses for henipaviruses, nairoviruses, arboviruses, pox viruses, hemorrhagic-fever viruses, human papillomaviruses, persistent and latent viruses, and human respiratory viruses. By using these assays, we can specifically detect and quantify Abs to each viral protein distinguishably, that is critical to discovering immune markers for accurate diagnosis, differentiate between infection and immunization, spillover, zoonoses, and future therapeutic interventions.