Dr. Krishna Das Manandhar is a Professor of Biotechnology at Central Department of Biotechnology, Tribhuvan University (TU) in Kirtipur, Kathmandu, Nepal. He passed his school education from Siddhartha Vanasthali High School, Vanasthali, Balaju, Kathmandu in 1981. He obtained his proficiency certificate level (ISc in Biology ;1983) and undergraduate degree (BSc in Biology and chemistry; 1986) from Amrit Science Campus, Tribhuvan University, Lainchaur, Kathmandu Nepal. Dr. Manandhar completed his graduate course (MSc) in Zoology with specialization in Parasitology from Tribhuvan University Central Campus, Kirtipur. His professional career began joining Padma Kanya Multiple Campus, Tribhuvan University as a Assistant Lecturer of Zoology subject from 1992. In the same year he also worked as visiting lecturer at Central Department of Zoology of TU and taught the graduate students. He was promoted to Lecturer in 1997. He contributed the university institute as a Head of Biology Department, the first Coordinator of B.Sc. Environment Science Course, Canadian based Women Empowerment project etc.

His research journey commenced after he received the prestigious INSA fellowship Award to carry a six-month research work on Entomophilic Nematodes at Aligarh Muslim University, India in 2003. Prof. Manandhar joined for PhD degree course under Professor Dr. Shyam Sundar in the Institute of Medicine, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India in 2004. He received his Ph.D. in Infectious Diseases research in Leishmaniasis in 2008. WHO-TDR Advance course in Immunology, Vaccinology & Biotechnology of infectious diseases at University of Lausanne, Switzerland in 2009 exposed him to international arena. In the same year, Dr. Manandhar promoted to Associate professor and transferred to the then, recently established Central Department of Biotechnology to teach Immunology, Animal Biotechnology and Medical Biotechnology for the graduate students.  During the period he visited Europe and America participating national and international conferences. In addition, he received a BEST grant award to do research in Institute Recherche pour le Development (IRD), Montpellier, France for a Post Doc in Leishmaniasis in 2011/12. Dr. Manandhar was promoted to Full Professor in 2013. After a brief stints, in a dynamic role of Deputy coordinator of IOST’s IRLASP project from 2013-14 functionalizing the idle instruments stuck in different central departments of TU, Prof. Manandhar received nine-month Fulbright Senior Research Scholarship for 2015/16 which was the turning point for his virus research career to begin with Dengue virus. He worked rigorously under Dr. Sujan Shresta in her dengue infectious disease Laboratory.

Tribhuvan University appointed Prof. Manandhar as the Head of the Central Department of Biotechnology (CDBT-TU) in December 18, 2016 for four years. Since then, he worked day-night very hard and never looked behind to establish the Department as a model science department in Tribhuvan University equipped with Advanced Sophisticated Instruments. TU without any hesitation, assigned Prof. Manandhar as Head for the second tenure in 2020 till 2024. The Department accumulated huge assets of scientific advanced expensive equipment in dynamic leadership of Prof. Manandhar like Illumina MiSeq Next Generation Sequencer, Bioanalyzer, RT-PCR, Automatic nucleic acid extractor, Nano-drop, Qubit, Super computer, Flow cytometer, HPLC, Ultra centrifuge, Cooling centrifuge, BSL-2 laboratory, -800C freezers, MilliQ water system, ELISA Plate reader and washer, 12 KVA Power backup system etc. Department realizes that Prof. Manandhar not mount up the instruments, he also brought many prestigious national and international projects to keep the instruments running and the faculties/researchers/students are benefited at large. The projects to name are UGC-Nepal’s Collaborative Research Grant, TU’s national priority grant, Industrial grants, USA’s prestigious NIH grant, ICGEB grants, TWAS, IFS etc. Many of the above-mentioned instruments were directly sent by CRDF Global Fund- USA for Prof. Manandhar’s lab. Now the funding agents/institutions are much convinced that CDBT-TU is capable to carry advanced research works because of which recently, a entrepreneurship grant of UGC was approved and currently running.

In his decisive, diligent and forward-thinker leadership Department supported the government during the Covid-19 pandemic establishing a Covid Lab and determined the circulating variant of SARS Cov-2 virus by sequencing in its laboratory. The Nepal Government, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology awarded this Department recognizing its contribution during the health emergency.

PhD and Post Doc.

31 years teaching, 20 years research

2023

1. Rai, T., Shrestha, S., Prajapati, S., Bastola, A., Parajuli, N., Ghimire, P. G., ... & Manandhar, K. D. (2023). Leishmania donovani persistence and transmission causing cutaneous leishmaniasis in unusual-foci of Nepal. Scientific Reports. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-2603027/v1[Q1/SJR 2023-0.97]
2. Rauniyar, R., Prajapati, S., Manandhar, B., Bastola, A., Chalise, B. S., Shrestha, S.,  Khanal, C., Thapa, M., Napit, R., Bajracharya, A.M., Shrestha, S., Adhikari, A., & Manandhar, K.D. (2023). Dengue virus infection during window period of consecutive outbreaks in Nepal and assessment of clinical parameters. Scientific Reports, 13(1), 9262. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-35928-5[Q1/SJR 2023-0.97]
3. Müncha CC, Upadhaya BP, Rayamajhee B, Adhikari A, Münch M, En-Nossea N, Kowalski K, Eickmanna M, Bauer C, Manandhar KD, Keller C(2023). Multiple Orientia clusters and Th1-skewed chemokine profile: a cross-sectional study in patients with scrub typhus from Nepal. International Journal of Infectious Diseases. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2022.12.022. [Q1/SJR 2023-2.43]
4. Ghimire, S., Yadav, B.K., Shrestha, S., Shakya, J., Poudel, C.M., Tuladhar, E.T., Sharma, V.K., Raut, M., Bhattarai, A., Manandhar, K.D. and Pant, V., 2023. Effect of ABCA1-R219K Polymorphism in Serum Lipid Parameters in Patients under Statin Therapy Visiting Tertiary Cardiac Center of Nepal. Journal of Laboratory Physicians, 15.

2022

1. Basnet, R., Rai, N., Tamang, R., Awasthi, N. P., Pradhan, I., Parajuli, P, Kashyap, D, Reddy, A.G., Chaudey G., Manandhar, K.D., Shrestha, T.R., Thangarajan, K. (2022). The matrilineal ancestry of Nepali populations. Human Genetics. 142(2):167-180.doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-1728898/v1 [Q1/SJR 2021-1.85]
2. Adhikari HS, Garai A, Manandhar KD, and Yadav PN (2022). Pyridine-Based NNS Tridentate Chitosan Thiosemicarbazones and Their Copper(II) Complexes: Synthesis, Characterization, and Anticancer Activity. American Chemical Society (ACS) Omega. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.2c02966. [Q1/SJR 2022-0.71]
3. Jha, BK, Mehta, R and Manandhar, KD. (2022). Investigation of the Diagnostic Accuracy of Rapid Influenza Diagnostic Kit Method in Comparison to the Real Time Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction. Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research. Volume 46- Issue 3. Pg 37363-37367. DOI: 10.26717/BJSTR.2022.46.007341.