Short Bio

Dr. Satyajit Patra was born and raised in a small village near Bankura town in West Bengal. He pursued his B.Sc in Chemistry at Bankura Christian College (affiliated with Burdwan University) from 2004 to 2007, and completed his M.Sc in Chemistry at IIT Kharagpur in 2009. During his master's thesis at IIT Kharagpur, he developed an interest in advanced fluorescence spectroscopy topics. He then joined Prof. Anunay Samanta's group, a leading fluorescence chemist at the University of Hyderabad, to pursue his Ph.D, focusing on the photophysics of quantum dots and the diffusion of small fluorescent probes in complex solvent media using fluorescence correlation spectroscopy.

In 2015, Dr. Patra moved to Germany to work with Prof. Roland Winter at TU Dortmund, where he developed a sample chamber for single-molecule fluorescence studies under high pressure and conducted the first single-molecule FRET measurement at high pressure to explore the pressure effect on the biomolecular conformational dynamics. In 2018, he joined Prof. Jerome Wenger's group at CNRS Institut Fresnel in Marseille, France, where he was introduced to nanoplasmonics. There, he utilized plasmonic nanomaterials to surpass the diffraction limit in single-molecule fluorescence detection, enhancing signal detection and enabling studies at physiologically relevant µM concentrations.

After spending over six years in abroad, he returned to India in November 2021 and briefly worked as an assistant professor at GITAM University, Visakhapatnam, before joining the Birla Institute of Technology and Science -Pilani (BITS-Pilani) as an assistant professor in January 2022. His primary research interest lies in using physical chemistry tools to understand the structure-function relationships of life's molecular machines, such as proteins, DNA, and RNA, particularly focusing on DNA and protein structures with potential applications in anticancer and antiviral therapies.