CRISPRBITS - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Managing Director of Bhawani Plywoods Private Limited
Aditya Sarda is the Managing Director of Bhawani Plywoods Private Limited and a partner in Pioneer Timber Products.
Aditya Sarda is the Managing Director of Bhawani Plywoods Private Limited, and a partner in Pioneer Timber Products, a company that manufactures processed timber joinery. Aditya earned a BSc (Hons.) from BITS, Pilani, in 1976.
Bharat Jobanputra is a former Vice President of Projects at Forderanlagen Magdeburg GmbH in Canada. He led major turn key projects for leading multinational firms.
Bharat Jobanputra retired in 2016 as Vice President (Projects) at Forderanlagen Magdeburg GmbH in Canada. He was responsible for successful execution of several lump sum turn key projects for Canada's leading multinational Oil Drilling and Mining Equipment Manufacturers for 26 years. Until 1989, he worked with India's premier engineering consultancy firms in Mumbai. Bharat graduated with a B.E. (Hons.) in Civil Engineering from BITS, Pilani, in 1977.
Dr. Ajit Chande is a group leader of molecular virology laboratory and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at IISER Bhopal. His research focuses on understanding the fundamental aspects of retrovirus pathogenesis and developing effective gene delivery vectors for various applications, including CRISPR/Cas-mediated gene editing.
Dr. Chande received his Ph.D. in Virology from ACTREC, Tata Memorial Centre in 2012. He then held a research scientist position at ICGEB New Delhi, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Trento, Italy. In 2017, he established the Laboratory of Molecular Virology at IISER Bhopal.
Dr. Chande's research has made significant contributions to the fundamental and translational aspects of retroviruses. His group has identified novel mechanisms of retrovirus pathogenesis, including hijacking of host encoded circular RNAs by HIV for its replication. Dr. Chande's group also identified cellular processes that can be transiently inhibited to stimulate CRISPR/Cas-mediated gene editing in primary human cells, and his work has the potential to revolutionize the treatment of diseases.
Dr. Chande is a recipient of many prestigious awards, including the Ramanujan Fellowship, the Innovative Young Biotechnologist Award, and the Wellcome-Trust/DBT India Alliance Fellowship.
Dr. Chande is a passionate scientist who is committed to using his research to make a positive impact on the world. He is excited about the potential of CRISPR-Cas technology to treat diseases, develop point-of-care diagnostics, and improve human health. He is also committed to training the next generation of CRISPR scientists, and he is currently mentoring several Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers.
Dr. Sternberg is a protein-RNA biochemist and CRISPR expert. His research focuses on investigating CRISPR-Cas, and harnessing these systems for biotechnology applications ranging from viral RNA diagnostics to precision DNA editing.
Dr. Sternberg received his BA in Biochemistry from Columbia University in 2007 and PhD in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2014. His doctoral research under the mentorship of Dr. Jennifer Doudna, Nobel Laureate, focused on CRISPR systems for genome engineering applications.
He has received many prestigious awards. His work has been published in Nature, Science and Cell. He is the co-author, along with Dr. Doudna, of "A Crack In Creation", a popular science book about the discovery, development and applications of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology. He is an invited speaker internationally. He was also a Tedmed 2015 speaker on the transformative power of CRISPR.
Manisha Bhardwaj is a Bioinformatician with a Master's degree in Bioinformatics and Biotechnology from Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB), Bengaluru.
After Manisha's post graduation, she worked at nference briefly as a Bioscience intern where she helped develop a Proteomics app for an AI-based nferX platform. She went on to work at National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) post that, as a Project Associate under The Rockefeller Foundation's Pandemic Prevention Institute (PPI) which is a global effort to detect, prevent and mitigate pandemic threats to achieve containment as soon as possible. Before joining CrisprBits, she worked at Elucidata in their Curation and Data Science teams.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Marketing Division of Columbia Business School
Rajeev Kohli (PhD, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania) is the Ira Leon Rennert Professor of Business at Columbia Business School.
Rajeev has been a member of the Marketing Division of Columbia Business School since 1991. He was the Chair of the Division from 2010-2013.
Rajeev serves on the academic advisory board of the Chazen Institute for Global Business, and on the advisory board of the Deepak and Neera Raj Center on Indian Economic Policies. He previously served on the board of NYC Media Labs, which was founded by the city of New York to spur innovation and entrepreneurship in the media industries. Rajeev's research areas include product development, emerging markets and discrete mathematics. He earned a PhD in Applied Economics and Decision Sciences from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (1984); an MBA from Northern Illinois University (1980); and a BE (Electrical) from the Birla Institute for Science and Technology, Pilani, India (1977).
Job Titles:
- Director of the Gene and Cell Therapy Institute at Mass General Brigham
- Scientific Leader
Roger Hajjar is the director of the Gene and Cell Therapy Institute at Mass General Brigham.
He received his BS in Biomedical Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University in and his MD from Harvard Medical School and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences & Technology. He completed his training in internal medicine, cardiology, heart failure/cardiac transplantation and research fellowships at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston where he then directed the Cardiology Laboratory of Integrative Physiology and Imaging.
From 2007 to 2018, Dr. Hajjar was the Director of the Cardiovascular Research Center, and the Arthur & Janet C. Ross Professor of Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. From 2019 to 2022, Dr. Hajjar was head of R&D at Ring Therapeutics, a Flagship Pioneering company.
Dr. Hajjar is an internationally renowned scientific leader in the field of cardiac gene therapy. His laboratory had validated a number of cardiac targets that led to the initiation and completion under his guidance of First-in-Human gene therapy trials in patients with heart failure.
He has authored over 500 publications and has received numerous awards for his achievements in the field cardiac gene therapy including the Young Investigator Award of the American Heart Association, the Doris Duke Clinical Scientist award, the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Johns Hopkins University, the American Heart Association Distinguished Achievement Award and the Thomas W. Smith Award of the American Heart Association.
He is the founder of multiple gene therapy companies, some of which have had successful exits.
Salil is an MIT-trained engineer and entrepreneur having worked at the intersection of life sciences and microtechnology. He has founded two biotech startups and served in engineering leadership roles. His unique skill set at the intersection of cellular and molecular biology, microengineering and machine learning has led him to advising companies ranging from the Fortune 500 to leading-edge startups. Salil brings his extensive industry and research experience to bear in helping CrisprBits formulate and realize its technology strategy.