Dr. Shashi Bala Singh a Distinguished Scientist and Director General , Life Sciences (DG LS) in Defence Research and Development Organisation till 1st June 2018. Prior to DGLS she was ‘H’/Outstanding Scientist and Director of Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences (DIPAS), Delhi since 2010. A person with strong will, she has the distinction of serving as the Director of Defence Institute of High Altitude Research (DIHAR), Leh, from 2007 to 2010. She is an alumini of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) where she obtained her Ph.D. degree in Human Physiology in 1986 and started her career in DRDO at DIPAS, Delhi in 1990. She was awarded D.Sc. from Bharathiar University in 2014.
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Dr. Saurabh Srivastava has pursued his Masters in Pharmaceutical Sciences from “Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani, Rajasthan and earned his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics from “Panjab University, Chandigarh”. He carries more than 17 years of profound industrial and research experience working with several Pharmaceutical R&Ds, including IPCA labs, Mumbai, Wockhardt research centre, Aurangabad and His latest stint was with Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Hyderabad, as Tech Lead for development and commercialization of various NDA and ANDA based products for different regulated markets. Subsequently, he joined as an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutics, NIPER-Hyderabad. Presently he is heading the Department of Pharmaceutics and acting as a Member (Board of Governors; NIPER-Hyderabad), Member (Board of Directors; AVISHKARAN-BIRAC-BioNEST of NIPER Hyderabad), Associate Dean, (Academics) and Chairperson, Board of Studies & Research at NIPER Hyderabad.His areas of research interest include development and optimization of Industrially viable, feasible and scalable “Differentiated formulations; (505(b)2”, through utilization of “Micro/Nanostructured” Targeted drug deliveries along with Novel platform technologies, including “Amorphous solid dispersion”, “Fluidized bed processing”, “Particle coating” (Wurster process), “Pellet based controlled drug deliveries” “Compression coating”, Multiple Unit Particulate Systems (MUPS), “Osmotic drug deliveries” and “Lipid based drug carriers” for the purpose of “Bioavailability enhancement”, “Food effect minimization”, “Repurposing/New Indication”, “Synergism for FDCs”, “Dose/Dosing frequency reduction”. His major therapeutic area of research is “Neurodegenerative disorders”, “Dermal diseases”, “Colon targeting/GI disorders” and “Prostate/Breast Cancer”. He has mentored 20+ Masters Research scholars and 11 PhD Research scholars are carrying out their Doctoral research under his supervision. He along with his research team is actively involved in execution of several Industrial and Govt. aided research projects for the establishment of novel differentiated products. He has been awarded several appreciation and special recognition awards from Dr. Reddy’s laboratories for his outstanding contribution to research and development along with the International Travel grant from CSIR, New Delhi. He has 02 “Commercial Products”, 15+ “International and National Patents”, 02 Edited book, 25+ Book chapters along with 75+ research publications in Journals of International repute with 1500+ citations further to his credit.
Dr. Asthana has more than 21 years of post-doctoral experience in the field of biomaterials, micro/nanotechnology, microfluidics device designing, fabrication and characterization, hot embossing, cleanroom operations, and paper-microfluidics. He has worked at Institutes and Universities of International fame such as the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Institute Curie, France; the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA; Chungnam National University, South Korea; and University of Queensland, Australia.
Dr. Asthana is a Fellow of the Telangana Academy of Science. He is the recipient of many fellowships including S.R.F. (C.S.I.R., India), Curie Fellowship (France), Brainpool Fellowship (KRF, South Korea), and Ramalingaswami Return Fellowship (DBT, India) . Dr. Asthana has many publications in journals of international repute and international conferences apart from 04 Indian and PCT patents.
His research interests include paper-based microfluidic devices and their applications in clinical diagnosis, 3D cell culture, drug screening, and other biomedical applications. His group is also working on the application of 3D bioprinting, biomaterials, micro/nanofabrication, digital microfluidics, a wide range of microfluidic applications such as nanoparticle generation, and generation of drug delivery vesicles apart from non-conventional ways of fabricating microfluidic devices.
Dr. Asthana has been instrumental in establishing PAHL BioNanoTherapeutics Pvt. Limited, a startup established with funding from BIRAC under Bio-Initiative Grant (BIG) at IKP Park, Hyderabad. Moreover, he is associated with many start-ups working on affordable diagnostic and medical device companies in India as a scientific advisor, such as FastSense Diagnostics (Pune, India) and Microfluidic Paper Medical Devices Pvt. Ltd (Hyderabad, India). He is also the chief scientific advisor for ChitoLytic Diagnostics, Canada.
