Prof. G. K. Suraishkumar

G. K. Suraishkumar is a Professor in the Department of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM). He has been at IITM as a Professor since May 2004, and was earlier a faculty member in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) from April 1993 until mid-May 2004. He was also an Associate Faculty member in the erstwhile Centre for Biotechnology, which is now the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, at IITB, between 1995 and 2004. He earned his Ph.D. from Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA in 1993, and his B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering from IITM in 1986. He also did his Masters work at the University of Cincinnati, USA, between 1986 and 1988.Administratively, he played pivotal roles in the set-up of the Departments of Biotechnology, as the first formal Department Head, first at IIT Madras and later, at IIT Hyderabad. He was one of the main architects of the first postgraduate programme in Clinical Engineering in India, which is a multi-Institute program, and a first of its kind in India. In addition, he contributed as the Head of the Sophisticated Analytical Instrumentation Facility, Chennai. He continues to contribute on National level faculty selection/advisory/institution level committees in relevant areas.His major area of research is reactive species – currently, the relevance of them in nanoparticle toxicity, and bio-oil. Earlier, his research group had made significant, original contributions in the area of reactive species applied to improve bioreactor productivities and bio-oil which were financially supported through many sponsored research grants. The research contributions have been better disseminated through publications in reputed international journals– the complete list of publications is available as a link from his Department webpage, http://biotech.iitm.ac.in/faculty/suraishkumar-g-k/). He is also the inventor on four patents. Further, the technology developed in his group was successfully applied at Biocon industries, and has been featured in prestigious technology alerts such as the one by