Samir K. Saha

Child Health Research Foundation (CHRF), Dhaka, Bangladesh

Professor Samir K. Saha is the Founder and Executive Director of the Child Health Research Foundation (CHRF). He is also the Head of the Department of Microbiology at Bangladesh Shishu (Children) Hospital and Institute in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

He is known globally for his research on pediatric infectious diseases with specific focus on pneumonia, meningitis, and enteric fever in Bangladesh. He strives to find the true burden of these diseases, their causative organisms, drug resistance patterns and serotype distribution. His work facilitated the introduction of the Hib and pneumococcal vaccines in Bangladesh. He was the first scientist from a developing country to receive the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) award in 2017, for his outstanding research in Clinical Microbiology, which was followed by fellowship in the American Academy of Microbiology. On the same year, he was awarded the Carlos J. Finlay UNESCO Prize for Microbiology. In the Fall of 2019, he and his team’s publication in The Lancet received The Charles C. Shepard Science Award in the assessment category for their outstanding contribution in public health. In November, 2019 Professor Saha received membership (FRCPath) from the Royal college of Pathologist, United Kingdom. On 20th February in 2020, Professor Saha and his daughter (Dr. Senjuti Saha) have been recognized as Bill Gates’s Heroes for their work to reduce child mortality in Bangladesh and bringing global health equity. On the same year (12th May), under the supervision of Professor Saha and the direction of Dr. Senjuti, the first SARS-CoV-2 genome was sequenced in Bangladesh. For his lifelong commitment and devotion to the field of science and public health in 2021, he received the prestigious Ekushey Padak (second highest civilian award in Bangladesh) from the honorable Prime Minister of People’s Republic of Bangladesh.

Professor Saha is currently a member of the National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (NiTAG) of the Government of Bangladesh. He is also the member of WHO’s Technical Advisory Group (TAG) for (i) invasive bacterial vaccine preventable diseases and (ii) Respiratory Syncytial Virus. He has published more than 200 papers in peer-reviewed journals, mostly relating to childhood typhoid, pneumonia and meningitis. Professor Saha is conducting several multi-site and multi-country research projects supported by different international funding organizations.