Setting The Bar Higher

Friday, May 8th, 2009
Raj by Poster Raj Krishnan at the 2009 JSOE Research Expo. More details can be found here

Raj Krishnan, a 5th year Bioengineering Ph.D. student, has accomplished a rare if not unprecedented feat this year by being awarded the 1st place best poster award in three symposiums at the University of California, San Diego. Based on his research with Prof. Michael J. Heller (Prof. of Nanoengineering and Bioengineering), his posters and presentations are about a new technology to identify and separate cancer biomarkers directly from blood for early cancer diagnostics. In addition, the novel technology can also be used to manipulate cancer cells and stem cells in a simple manner using AC Electric Fields.

Competing against 240 posters from across the Jacobs School at the 28th annual Jacobs School of Engineering (JSOE) Research Expo this year, Raj managed to win the Nanoengineering Best Poster Award, the Science and Engineering Library Award for Best use of Literature, and the Lee Rudee Outstanding Poster Award, a triple award feat rarely accomplished before in the JSOE Expo.

Raj and Shankar Raj Krishnan being presented the best poster award at the 23rd annual BEGS Symposium by Prof. Shankar Subramanian from the Bioengineering School

He also captured the 1st place Grand Prize best poster award at the 23rd Annual UCSD Bioengineering Graduate (BEGS) Research Symposium as well as the 9th Annual All-Grad Research Symposium. He tied for 1st place for best presentation at the All-Grad symposium as well but was ineligible due to a one award per student limit. This is an incredible achievement, accomplished by winning his department’s symposium (BEGS), his school’s symposium (Jacobs Expo) and the University-wide symposium (All-Grad).

Overall, Raj has won 11 awards over the past three years with 7 awards coming over the last three months. Along with the three symposiums described above, he has won 1st place in the 2008 All-Grad Research Symposium, making him a repeat winner. Also, he has placed in the top three at the BEGS Symposiums for the past three years and has placed in the top three for both the fall and winter business plan competitions at the annually held UC San Diego Entrepreneur Challenge (http://challenge.ucsd.edu). Finally he has also been awarded the 3rd place Genentech presentation award at the 2008 9th Annual UC Systemwide Bioengineering Symposium, which features researchers from every UC School.

Award Winners Raj Krishnan (4th from left) being given a presentation award alongside other award winners at the 9th annual UC Systemwide Symposium

On the heels of these awards, Raj has formed a company to commercialize his research. His company Biological Dynamics, which he formed with Prof. Heller and fellow graduate students David Charlot and Roy Lefkowitz, has the goal of constructing devices for the isolation of bionanoparticles and cancer biomarkers directly from blood to detect cancer early. Current cancer therapeutics are quite adequate at treating and curing the disease, but are often used too late due to current cancer diagnostics being unable to identify early stage tumors. By concentrating on the identification of secondary tumor biomarkers such as cell free circulating DNA in blood, it may be possible to detect cancer long before current diagnostic tests. Secondary biomarkers also mean that virtually all cancers can be identified instead of only a few specific types of cancer. Raj hopes that his company can provide a benefit to all while advancing the science of early cancer diagnosis.


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