Ms Kamini Kunasegaran made the Bertoletti lab’s pivot from studying the hepatitis B virus to SARS-CoV-2 a practical reality. She achieved this by reorganising reagents and adapting what the lab had learnt about studying T cells in hepatitis B-infected
patients to work for SARS-CoV-2-infected and vaccinated people. And all that in a matter of weeks.
KAMINI KUNASEGARAN (CENTRE) CELEBRATES HER AWARD WITH SUPERVISOR ANTONIO BERTOLETTI (RIGHT) AND TEAMMATE NINA LE BERT (LEFT) // CREDIT: NINA LE BERT
“Kamini was the figure who made our ‘lab transformation’ a reality,” says Professor Antonio Bertoletti from Duke-NUS’ Emerging Infectious Diseases Programme.
“She did this not only working alone but by involving and motivating young research technicians and PhD students, creating a dedicated laboratory team that produced extremely high-quality results in a new area of research in a very short
time,” he added.
The results of those efforts speak for themselves: by July 2020, the team had published a paper in Nature despite having had to conduct their experiments under the tightest COVID-19 restrictions imposed by the Singapore government, working all hours as samples came in.
In recognition of these stellar accomplishments, Kamini today received the Asian Scientist Lab Tech of the Year 2021 MiRXES COVID-19 Hero Award from MiRXES CEO Dr Zhou Lihan at a ceremony held in Gardens by the Bay’s Flower Dome.
KAMINI, JOINED BY BERTOLETTI ON STAGE, RECEIVES HER AWARD FROM MIRXES CEO ZHOU LIHAN // CREDIT: NINA LE BERT
Recalling her reaction to the news, Kamini says: “I was pleasantly surprised and delighted to have received this award. More importantly, I am thankful for being part of a wonderful team for giving me the opportunity to contribute to the
fight against COVID-19.”