Dr Preethi Prajod

• Research Fellow, ORH ACP
• Instructor, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School

Dr Preethi Prajod obtained her doctorate in Oral Biology at the National University of Singapore. Following her doctoral studies, she joined as a postdoctoral fellow at NDRIS. Her research interest lies in understanding oral microbiome-systemic health connections using advanced molecular, sequencing and multi-omics technologies. She works on translating oral microbiological research towards patient care and development of preventive strategies for systemic diseases. Dr Preethi has published high impact papers in internationally recognised journals and has received awards from the International Association for Dental Research.

Research Focus Areas

• Investigation of oral-systemic health connection using omics technology
• Salivary biomarkers profiling for diagnostics
• Understanding the oral microbial ecology at health and disease

Current Projects

1. Investigation of oral health, oral microbiome and salivary proteome in gestational diabetes
2. Profiling of oral microbiome in rheumatic diseases
3. Precision medicine in liver cancer across an Asia-Pacific network
4. A double-blinded randomised clinical trial on the clinical efficacy of combinatorial probiotic and non-surgical periodontal therapy for chronic periodontitis patients

Publications and/or Research Projects

1. Balan P, He HG, Cao F, Wong M, Chong YS, Lopez V, Soh SE, Seneviratne CJ. Oral health in pregnant Chinese women in Singapore: A call to go beyond the traditional clinical care. Healthcare 2018;6(3):77.
2. Balan P, Chong YS, Umashankar S, Swarup S, Loke WM, Lopez V, Seneviratne CJ. Keystone species in pregnancy gingivitis: A snapshot of oral microbiome during pregnancy and postpartum period. Front Microbiol 2018;9:2360.
3. Balan P, B Gogineni S, Kumari NS, Shetty V, Lakshman Rangare A, Castelino RL, Areekat KF. Candida carriage rate and growth characteristics of saliva in diabetes mellitus patients: A case-control study. J Dent Res Dent Clin Dent Prospects 2015;9(4):274-9.
4. Balan P, Babu SG, Kumari SN, Shetty SR, Rangare AL, Castelino RL, Fazil KA. Can saliva offer an advantage in monitoring of diabetes mellitus? – A case control study. J Clin Exp Dent 2014;6(4):e335-8.
5. Balan P, Crielaard W, Seneviratne CJ. Composition and diversity of human oral microbiome in microbial biofilms (2017). CRC Press. ISBN 9781498722193.