CBE Special Seminar: Prof. Britto Sandanaraj (IISER, Pune India)

Development of Converging BioMedical Technologies Enable to Decipher Protein Function in Living Systems in Real Time

The convergence of two or more mature technologies leads to breakthrough innovation. The development of the mRNA vaccine in a record time is a great example of the development of successful converging technologies. In 2014, our laboratory embarked on a mission to solve the grand challenge of deciphering the protein function with an unprecedented specificity in living animals in real-time. This grand challenge consists of two major challenges i.e. (i) Targeted delivery of imaging/pharmacological agents and (ii) Development of a simple and powerful imaging method. Over the last decade, we have successfully developed two mature technologies; (i) Micelle-assisted protein labeling technology (MAPLabTech) and (ii) Activity-based reporter gene technology (AbRGT). In this talk, I will give a brief overview of the capability of these two technologies and our present efforts to integrate these technologies to address the grand challenge.

Biography

Dr. Britto obtained a Master’s in Biomedical Engineering from IIT-Bombay followed by PhD at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (2002-2007). He was a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow until 2010 at the Global Imaging Group of Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, Inc. at Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. He worked as a Senior Scientist in RNAi Therapeutics at Novartis-Cambridge until 2014 before joining IISER Pune. His research group’s interest is in the development of cutting-edge converging biomedical technologies for applications in the area of healthcare.

Profs. Saad Khan and Bala Rao are co-hosting this CBE Special Seminar.