Her most recent engagement is in the area of Ayurgenomics wherein individuals can be deep phenotyped based on the principles of Ayurveda to obtain homogeneous case-control cohorts to be used for disease gene mapping.
This approach is expected to overcome the issue of clinical/phenotypic heterogeneity which is a major limitation in contemporary complex trait genetics research.
[1] Her recent academic accomplishments include i) identification of novel risk genes/loci for two inflammatory conditions namely Rheumatoid arthritis & Ulcerative colitis by the first ever GWAS conducted in the genetically distinct north Indian population; ii) discovery of new causal genes namely MID2 for X-linked Intellectual Disability; PODXL and RIC3 genes for familial Parkinson's disease by exome sequencing approach; and iii) demonstration of differences/similarities between the two major Indian subpopulations namely south and north Indians using both SNP array based and exome sequencing approaches.
[3] Thelma had a short stint as postdoctoral fellow in the Human Genetics Laboratory at Children's Hospital, Switzerland with Professor Hans Jakob Muller.
Thelma established the DNA-based diagnosis facilities for fragile X syndrome, the most common form of inherited intellectual disability, with financial support from Department of Biotechnology.