Dr. Sanathana Konugolu Venkata Sekar (Team Leader, FAST-BioPhotonics@Tyndall, Senior staff researcher and Biomedical team coordinator), a leading scientist/entrepreneur with 9+ years of experience in biophotonics. As Biomedical theme coordinator, he coordinates scientific research across a multi-disciplinary team composed of 9 PIs and 25+ PhDs, postdocs at IPIC. He co-/supervises 5 PhD students, 4 postdocs and a research engineer, mentors many more students, entrepreneurs. He is also a co-founder of BioPixS Ltd-Biophotonics Standards, a spinoff of his research work.
The FAST-Biophotonics@Tyndall team aims to develop new frontiers time-of-flight tools for biophotonics applications. His other area of research and interests includes time-domain diffuse optical spectroscopy (TDDOS), UpConverting NanoParticle (UCNPs) for deep tissue imaging and Optogenetics applications, GAs in Scattering Media Absorption Spectroscopy (GASMAS) for infant lung vitals monitoring, Raman Spectroscopy, instrument development in Biophotonics, imaging and non-imaging probe development, optical standards and phantoms, medical device regulatory processes, and entrepreneurial activities in Biophotonics.
He has secured 10+ grants totalling over a million euros, and has been instrumental in securing a few other industrial targeted projects. His vision is to translate cutting-edge biophotonics research into breakthrough healthcare products to the benefit of the society.
He has, furthermore, played multiple roles as guest editor, reviewer, chair/organizer of events and workshops, rapporteur/moderator at international events/panels, research lead in multiple projects contributing to novel innovation in Biophotonics. He is an expert member at ISO-IEC standardization working groups: IEC/TC 62/SC 62D/JWG 5 “Oximeters”, amd ISO/TC 121/SC 3/JWG 10 “Oximeters”.
His academic excellence includes recipient of a Marie Curie (ITN) position resulting in an outstanding cum Laude award for this PhD dissertation in Biophotonics, Polimi, Milan, Italy. He is also a gold medalist for his master’s degree in physics (photonics), SSSIHL, Puttaparthi, India. He has developed Biophotonics tools and translated them into clinics. Examples of that includes : Time-domain diffuse optical spectroscopy (TDDOS) applied to phantom and in vivo clinical studies, Time domain diffuse correlation spectroscopy (TDDCS), Time-resolved Raman spectroscopy of diffusive media, and clinical translational research. One of his most important innovation is Frequency-offset Raman Spectroscopy (FORS), a novel technique to perform deep tissue Raman spectroscopy.
Sanathana is a team player and active funding seeker that is actively collaborating with various institutions (universities, scientific institutions, hospitals, industries) in Biophotonics.
