From 1989 to 1990, Swaminathan was a research fellow (registrar) in the Department of Pediatric Respiratory Diseases at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom.
She then worked as a senior research officer (Supernumerary Research Cadre), Cardiopulmonary Medicine Unit, as well as an adjunct associate clinical professor at the Department of Public Health and Family Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine in Massachusetts.[11]
In 1992, Swaminathan joined the National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis a/k/a Tuberculosis Research Centre, where she was Coordinator, Neglected Tropical Diseases. She later became the director of the National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis.[10]
From 2009 to 2011, Swaminathan was coordinator of the UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases in Geneva.
Until 2013, she was director, National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (NIRT) in Chennai.
From August 2015 to November 2017, Swaminathan was director general of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and secretary of the Department of Health Research (Ministry of Health & Family Welfare) for the Government of India.[10][12]
Career with WHO
From October 2017 to March 2019, Swaminathan was Deputy Director-General of the World Health Organization.[4][5]
In March 2019, Swaminathan became chief scientist of the World Health Organization, where she notably participated in regular twice weekly press briefings on the COVID-19 pandemic.[3] She has urged countries to conduct whole genome sequencing of the SARS-CoV-2 virus more frequently and to upload sequences to the GISAID project.[13]
In the preparations for the Global Health Summit hosted by the European Commission and the G20 in May 2021, Swaminathan was a member of the event's High Level Scientific Panel.[14]
Selected research
Swaminathan's areas of interest are pediatric and adult tuberculosis (TB), epidemiology and pathogenesis, and the role of nutrition in HIV-associated TB.[10][15]
While at the National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis in Chennai, Swaminathan started a multi-disciplinary group of clinical, laboratory and behavioural scientists studying various aspects of TB and TB/HIV. Swaminathan along with her colleagues were among the first to scale up the use of molecular diagnostics for TB surveillance and care, to undertake large field trials of community-randomised strategies to deliver TB treatment to underserved populations.[16] She was part of the TB Zero City Project which aimed to create "Islands of elimination" working with local governments, institutions and grassroots associations.[17][18]
In 2021, Swaminathan was also appointed to the Pandemic Preparedness Partnership (PPP), an expert group chaired by Patrick Vallance to advise the G7 presidency held by the government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson.[19]
