DST INSPIRE Faculty Indian Institute of Science (IISc Bengaluru)
Bio
Meenakshi Kamaraj was a Postdoctoral Researcher at Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovations, USA. She completed her PhD from Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, India and Swinburne University of Technology, Australia. During her PhD dissertation she worked on advances in polymer-based scaffolds for tissue engineering using 3D bioprinting and beyond. She has worked with REMOD group in ACMD research facility (BioFab3D Lab) at St. Vincent’s hospital Melbourne, Australia and her research expertise is on polymer-based scaffolds for cartilage tissue engineering application. She has been awarded the prestigious Swinburne University Postgraduate Research Awards (SUPRA) Fellowship and the Research Excellence Award 2022 from IIT Hyderabad, reflecting her outstanding contributions to research. Her academic excellence was further recognized with the Merit-cum-Fee Waiver Scholarship from the Ministry of Human Resource Development at Pondicherry University. Alongside her intellectual pursuits, Meenakshi has also excelled in table tennis, earning multiple medals in competitive tournaments including a winner of zonal sports tournaments 2011-2012 at Coimbatore.
Research Interest
3D Bioprinting (polymer and ceramic);
Tissue-specific decellularized extracellular polymer matrix for vascular tissue regeneration;
Photo-cross-linkable and ceramic bioinks for osteo repair;
Fluorescently labelled polymer scaffolds and microspheres for cartilage tissue regeneration;
Nanofibrous microspheres for diabetic wound healing.
Hands on Skills
Bioinks formulations and characterizations for 3D Bioprinting;
Primary cell isolation and mammalian cell culture;
3D polymer and ceramic based scaffold characterizations
Cell viability and proliferation
protein content quantification
Cell differentiation analysis in 3D scaffolds (IF, IHC, RT-qPCR);
Electrospinning and Electrospraying of nanofibrous microspheres;