Nanotechnology in Ophthalmology

Professor Mahendra Rai is a UGC-Basic Science Research Faculty Fellow and former head of the Department of Biotechnology, Sant Gadge Baba Amravati University, India. Presently, he is a visiting Scientist at the Department of Microbiology, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland. His areas of expertise include microbial biotechnology and nanobiotechnology. Currently, his group’s main research interest is green synthesis of metal nanoparticles particularly using fungi and their applications as nanoantimicrobials against pathogenic microbes. Prof. Rai has received several prestigious awards, including the Medini Award by the Government of India. He has been featured in Stanford’s list of the top 2% of scientists in nanoscience.

Marcelo Occhiutto, MD, is a Physician in the Department of Anterior Segment and Refractive Surgery of the Tadeu Cvintal Institute of Ophthalmology, Brazil. He is also a Researcher at the Department of Ophthalmology and Human Genetics in the University of Campinas. His most recent research focuses on the use of nanotechnology for antiproliferative drugs in glaucoma surgeries and the identification of genetic polymorphisms that participate in the etiology of this serious eye disease.

Dr. Sushama Talegaonkar is an Associate Professor at the Department of Pharmaceutics, Delhi Pharmaceutical Sciences and Research University, India. She has approximately 21 years of experience, and has published more than 220 research papers in high impact international journals. Besides this, she has coauthored 6 books and authored 15 chapters in international reference books. Recently, she received the Professor C. J. Shishoo Award for Best Research. Her research paper titled “Development and bioavailability assessment of ramipril nanoemulsion formulation has received the most cited research paper award on behalf of Elsevier and the board of European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics. She was awarded the prestigious Motan Devi Dandiya Biennial Prize for best publication in Pharmaceutical Sciences for the period 2010–11. Dr. Talegaonkar is actively involved in developing a wide variety of smart and functionalized nanodrug delivery systems for targeted anticancer drug delivery.