Advances in light-based 3D printing technologies to shape soft materials for bioscience applications (12/12/23)
Speaker and Affliation:
Dr. Pranav Soman
Associate Professor
Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering and BioInspired Institute
Syracuse University, USA
& Satish Dhawan Visiting Professor, IISc
When?
12th December, 2023 (Tuesday), 4.00 PM (India Standard Time)
Where
KPA Auditorium, Dept. of Materials Engineering, IISc, Bangalore
Abstract:
Nature’s marvelous ability to arrange few materials (proteins, sugars, minerals) across scales has realized a wide range of ‘smart’ multifunctional structures optimized to satisfy specific environmental demands. Man-made manufacturing, however, is not able to match Nature’s building capabilities. My group focuses on closing this gap between nature-made and man-made structures by developing new multiscale, multi-material, and multimodal optics-based printers and processing technologies with applications in the areas of microfluidics, organ-on-chip, photonics, durable hydrogels, bioprinting, and single cell applications. I strongly believe that a mutually reinforcing positive feedback between ‘new technology’, ‘applications’ and ‘scientific discovery’ is essential to drive bioscience forward. In this seminar, I will present three new technologies and their unique capabilities of making functional photonic, microfluidic, and organ-on-chip devices. These next-generation tools will enable researchers to address new challenges in biomedical sciences.
Biosketch:
Pranav Soman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering and a member of the BioInspired Institute at Syracuse University. He earned his PhD from Penn State University in 2009, followed by postdoctoral fellow positions at the University of Texas, Austin and the University of California, San Diego, before joining Syracuse University in Sept 2013. Dr. Soman is an expert in developing new 3D printing technologies that allow for a broad range of print sizes, resolutions, and 3D designs with a variety of materials. His group is primarily funded by NIH, NSF, and DARPA. Some recent honors awarded to Dr. Soman include The U.S. Air Force Research Lab Summer Faculty Fellowship Program (2022), Techconnect Defense Innovation Award and E&T Outstanding Innovation in the Manufacturing 4.0 (2020). Dr. Soman has authored and coauthored more than 50 articles in peer-reviewed journals such as Advanced Materials, Advanced Functional Materials, Biofabrication, Advanced Optical Materials, ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing, among others. Dr. Soman is also a founder of 3DM - a startup with the mission of making microfabrication accessible to everyone with a specific focus on life science researchers. In Jan 2024, Dr. Soman will be joining the National Science Foundation (NSF) as a Program Director for the Advanced Manufacturing (AM) program.