Dr Sharma diagnosed the first case of Acanthamoeba keratitis in India in 1987 and reported the first case of ocular microsporidiosis in India in 2003. She works in the area of keratitis of fungal, bacterial, Acanthamoeba, microsporidial origin; contact lens associated microbial keratitis, infectious endophthalmitis, antibiotic susceptibility of ocular isolates, molecular typing of Acanthamoeba, diagnosis and treatment of Pythium keratitis etc. She has guided six PhD students and one PhD student is currently working under her guidance. Having authored a book on Ocular Microbiology, 19 book chapters and 310 papers in peer-reviewed journals, she is a prolific science writer. At present her interests are the molecular diagnosis of eye infections, the role of biofilm in bacterial and Candida eye infections, correlation of ocular and gut microbiome in keratitis and uveitis, antibiotic susceptibility of drugs for Pythium keratitis, evaluation of non-antibiotic therapy for eye infections and hospital infection control.