Poonam Sharma

Dr. Poonam Sharma serves as a Research Assistant Professor and Assistant Director for the Diagnostic Assay Validation Network (DAVN) at the Institute of Biosecurity and Microbial Forensics (IBMF), OSU. With a PhD in Human Pathology, specializing in Infectious Disease from Aix Marseille University, Marseille, France, Dr. Sharma's research primarily focused on studying the lung and gut microbiota of cystic fibrosis patients.

Following her doctoral studies, Dr. Sharma gained experience as an ORISE Postdoctoral scientist through the USDA-ARS Research participation program. During this time, she worked in two different units at the United States National Poultry Research Centre, Athens, GA. In the Southeast Poultry unit, her research focused on the development of Next-Generation sequencing approaches for studying poultry-related viruses. She also established and managed the Next-Generation sequencing central facility. Subsequently, she moved to the Bacterial Epidemiology and Antimicrobial Resistance Research unit, where she investigated the prevalence of foodborne pathogens and their antimicrobial resistance.

Dr. Sharma joined IBMF in 2020 and was instrumental in establishing the National Diagnostic Assay Laboratory Network (DALN). Currently, her work centers around leading a national project aimed at building and coordinating the DAVN. The goal of this project is to enhance diagnostic practices for plant pathogens by addressing technical challenges across a range of molecular diagnostic tools and establishing standards for method development and validation research within the plant pathology community. 

Furthermore, Dr. Sharma is actively involved in developing assay validation protocols for Next-Generation sequencing of bacterial and viral pathogens in plants and food animals. Her efforts are directed towards advancing the field of diagnostic research and ensuring more efficient and accurate detection methods.