Nimesh Gupta

Dr. Nimesh Gupta, an Indian vaccine immunologist, is a senior scientist and the Chief of the Vaccine Immunology Laboratory at the National Institute of Immunology in India. He has done research on understanding the T-cell determinants of long-term and broadly protective immunity against virus infection and vaccination. In addition to his research, Dr. Gupta has established a Human Immune Monitoring and T-cell Assay Platform for vaccine evaluation.

Education and academic posts
Nimesh completed a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology and a Master of Science in Biotechnology from Jiwaji University, Gwalior. He then pursued his Ph.D. in 2011 from Jiwaji University and DRDO, Gwalior.

In 2008, Nimesh attended the Institute Pasteur in Paris, France for his doctoral studies and was also a Raman Charpak Fellow. He continued his postdoctoral research from 2011 in the team of Sebastian Lacroix Desmazes at the Centre de recherche des Cordeliers, Paris, studying T-cell Immunology and immunity to viruses. In 2015, he joined the National Institute of Immunology, India as a Scientist and established the Vaccine Immunology Laboratory.

Research
Nimesh's research has primarily focused on investigating T-cell immunity in the context of virus infection and vaccines. His research programs involve longitudinal cohorts that study controlled vaccination and human virus infections such as Dengue, Japanese encephalitis, and COVID-19. In collaboration with AIIMS, Nimesh published a report on the immune response to the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the Indian population. The study revealed that prior to the pandemic, the Indian population already possessed cross-reactive T cells to SARS-CoV-2 and demonstrated that the immune memory response (T cells and B cells) to the virus exhibited durability traits. This study provided evidence into the type of immunity generated in the Indian population following exposure to SARS-CoV-2. In 2021, Nimesh joined the subgroup of the Vaccine Expert Committee, Department of Biotechnology, to study the immunology of COVID-19 vaccines and infection in India. In a multi-centric collaboration, Nimesh published a report on the traits of the immune memory response to any inactivated virus vaccine. This study provided evidence on the quality and durability of immune memory established by the inactivated virus COVID-19 vaccine and its response to SARS-CoV-2 variants. Nimesh's team also provided crucial knowledge on the mechanism of protective immunity induced by the historical live attenuated Japanese encephalitis (JE) vaccine (SA14142). In close collaboration with Shane Crotty and Alessandro Sette,