Professor Suman Chakraborty has been selected for the 30th GD Birla Award for Scientific Research for his outstanding contribution to engineering science and its applications in developing technologies for affordable healthcare, the KK Birla Foundation said in a statement on Thursday.
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Instituted in 1991, the award recognises eminent Indian scientists below the age of 50 for their original and outstanding contributions to any branch of science or technology. It carries a cash prize of ₹5 lakh. The recipient is chosen by a selection board, whose present head is professor Chandrima Shaha, the president of the Indian National Science Academy (INSA).
Chakraborty, a faculty member at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur’s department of mechanical engineering, completed his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from the Jadavpur University in 1996. He went on to get a Masters degree and a PhD from the Indian Institute of Science. He has also been an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, Indo-US Research Fellow, and a visiting professor at various leading institutions across the world. Chakraborty was also awarded the JC Bose National Fellowship by the Indian government’s department of science and technology.
He is credited with establishing the first microfluidics laboratory in the framework of an academic institution in India to facilitate the study of how tiny volumes of fluids flow through small channels. Apart from being a reputable academic, Chakraborty has invented technologies that have not only been patented but also licensed to industrial houses for commercialisation.
{{/usCountry}}He is credited with establishing the first microfluidics laboratory in the framework of an academic institution in India to facilitate the study of how tiny volumes of fluids flow through small channels. Apart from being a reputable academic, Chakraborty has invented technologies that have not only been patented but also licensed to industrial houses for commercialisation.
{{/usCountry}}He has innovated a number of affordable medical devices, including a low-cost spinning disc for assessing Complete Blood Count, highly accurate paper-strip based technology for common blood tests, tumour-on-a-chip device for probing cancer cell migration, and a low-cost nucleic-acid based platform technology for rapid detection of Covid-19 infection (COVIRAP).
He has also been a recipient of the Scopus Young Scientist Award (Elsevier, 2008), the Santi Swaroop Bhatnagar Award (2013) and a number of Young Scientist/ Young Engineer Awards from all the major national academies, which is testament to his contributions to the scientific field.