Former Professor, & Head (June 2006 - May 2018)
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Manipal Institute of Technology - Manipal
Manipal Academy of Higher Education ( an Institute of Eminence )
Manipal - 576 104, INDIA
Sai Spandana C., Rijul S. Soans, Peralam Y. Prakash, and Ramesh R. Galigekere, “Automatic and Comprehensive Classification of the Morphological Forms of Candida albicans”, presented at the 6Th IEEE International Conference on Inventive Computation Technologies – (ICICT-2023), Tribhuvan University, NEPAL, April 26-28, 2023.
COLLABORATOR: Dr. Kiranam Chatti, Principal Research Scientist, Dr. Reddy's Life Sciences institute, Hyderabad
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Other areas: NAADI Signal Processing - to detect conditions not possible by ECG alone....
Signal/Image processing applications for Assessing Movement Disorders
B.E. in Electronics & Communications Engineering from Mysore University (National Institute of Engineering, Mysore, M.Sc. (Engg.) by Research, from the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. Ph.D. in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1997.
The Imaging Research Laboratories of the Robarts Research Institute (RRI), London, Ontario, Canada. Guest Scientist at the Medical Engineering Group (GT-4), Siemens AG, Erlangen, Germany (as a part of collaboration with RRI, London, Ontario).
TOPIC: Cone Beam CT: Reconstruction, Enhancement & Visualization
Neurovascular Research Laboratory at the School of Kinesiology, University of Western Ontario (UWO, both in London, Ontario).
TOPIC: Development of Signal Processing algorithms - for Analysis of ECG and Muscle Sympathetic Nerve Activity (MSNA) records
Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Moment-based invariants - invariance to blur
Development of Adaptive Algorithms for tracking frequencies and powers of narrow-band components
Served as an Adjunct Professor at the Dept. of Electrical Engineering, UWO, Canada.
Work as a Senior Software Engineer at IO Industries, London, Ontario, Canada - exposed me to Software development.
I joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (an Institute of Eminence), Manipal, as a Professor, and headed the Dept. from June 2006 to May 2018), MIT. Apart from triggering research, I had an opportunity to contribute to the academic structure - in terms of regular assignments, multiple choice questions in tests, and essential mathematics-courses in the MTech program. These ideas subsequently got introduced at the MIT-level.
Biomedical Signal processing, and medical imaging/Image/Video Processing: contact/non-contact methods of estimation & analysis of vitals in humans and animal models (ZEBRAFISH LARVAE, now a popular model for studying the cardiovascular system: ), image processing and visualization in microscopy and nuclear medicine.
Non-contact methods of measuring vitals has become all the more important, under the current circumstances arising from the pandemic - COVD-19.
One of my current projects is on Automated (Digital) TB-screening (partially funded by the State TB Office, Govt. of Karnataka) by image processing, which involves deeper research with respect to MDR-TB - this R & D project is in line with our PM's vision for the country in Healthcare. We hold a US patent on method of TB-assessment by microscope image processing (see publications-section). For more information, see "TB-facts". This is a part of what may be considered "Digital Pathology".
Traditional Indian medicine, as it is called today, refer to medical practices that have existed since time-immemorial, and consists of several branches, one of which is "Naadi Pareeksha" - examination of the signals (pulses) at 3 different spots on the wrist) - has been an important one. Digital acquisition and analysis of Naadi, is obviously timely and useful - and I have initiated work in this direction.
I have had an opportunity at the MIT to organize several International events (apart from national-level workshops): International Conference on Biomedical Engineering (ICBME-2011) as the main Chair (along with Dr. AG Ramakrishnan, IISc, Bangalore, and Dr. Jayaram K Udupa, Medical Image Processing Group, UPenn, USA), IGSTC-sponsored Indo-German Symposium “Advances in Medical Technology towards Current Healthcare Necessities”, March 05-07, 2014 (along with Dr. MMM Pai, MIT, Manipal & Dr. Arved Huebler, pmTUC, Chemnitz, Germany), and and a 14-day course “Matching, Modeling, Meta-Analysis, Information Theory and Machine Learning”, supported by the USIEF and hosted by MIT, Manipal, as the Local Course Lead, in the Fulbright-Nehru Specialist Program led by Dr. Mandava Pitchaiah (Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas). For details, check the tab on "Professional Activities".
Membership of Professional Organizations: A Senior Member of the IEEE, and a Life Member of the Biomedical Engineering Society of India. Served as the Vice Chair & the Chairman of the Student Branch, IEEE Bangalore Section, IISc, Bangalore, during 1987 and 1990.