Dr. Vijay Chandru (Ph.D., MIT 1982) is an academic entrepreneur recognized as the 'Technology Pioneer' by the World Economic Forum in 2006. His academic career has spanned over two decades at Purdue University and the Indian Institute of Science.
Chandru is the recipient of several awards and honors: Fellow of Indian Academy of Sciences (1996), MCIT Dewang Mehta Award for Innovation in IT (2001), UGC Hari Om Trust award for "Science and Society" (2003), the President's Medal of INFORMS in 2006, distinguished Alumni award by the MIT India Program in 2007, and was recognized as the Biospectrum Biotech Entrepreneur of 2007.
Chandru is the elected President (2009-2012) of Association of Biotech Led Enterprises (ABLE), the apex trade body representing the Indian biotech industry.
Dr. Ramesh Hariharan is an academic entrepreneur responsible for the software based technology development and implementation at Strand Life Sciences (Strand). He is also the chief architect for all of Strand's products, including the award winning AVADIS® platform.
He is a recipient of the TR100 Award (2002) of Young Innovators by MIT's Technology Review Magazine and in 2003 received the Global Indus Technovator Award from MIT, instituted to recognize the top 20 Indian technology innovators worldwide.
Ramesh is an IIT - Delhi Computer Science alumnus, has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Science, New York University and a postdoctoral degree in Computer Science from the Max Planck Institute, Saarbrücken, Germany. His research interests are in sequence analysis, string algorithms, computational biology, computational geometry and foundations of computing.
Dr. Kalyanasundaram, popularly known as 'Kas', leads Strand's scientific and technical programs and coordinates the cross-divisional efforts in R&D. Kas's interests lie in the field of ADMET modeling and molecule design using machine learning and systems biology techniques. He has over a decade of experience in modeling biological systems.
An IIT - Bombay alumnus, Kas went on to complete his M.S. in Chemical Engineering from the State University of New York College at Buffalo. Equipped with a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University, Kas took up the position of Senior Scientist at Genetic Therapy Inc (Novartis) between 1997-2000, where he helped set-up a group to perform research in synthetic and hybrid vectors for gene delivery. Prior to Strand, Kas headed the Collaborative R&D group for immunology products at Entelos.
Thiru P. Reddy joined Strand in early 2003. He currently heads the Business Operations group responsible for the sales and product development support, Intellectual Property Rights, marketing, back office operations and business development in Asia Pacific
Thiru has a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Osmania University College of Engineering, Hyderabad and an M.S. in Engineering from West Virginia University, Morgantown.
Thiru has over 13 years of experience in designing, managing, marketing and sales of life sciences software. Prior to Strand, Thiru worked as Senior Systems Analyst at Incyte Corp. where he project managed biological information management system and was involved in the designing & development of their flagship products. He held Lead Consultant position at Bayer Corp. for developing a LIMS system for their biotechnology division.
Binay Panda heads the Genomics Applications and Informatics Technology laboratories (GANIT Labs), a public-private partnership effort and directs molecular diagnostics activities at Strand. He has a Ph.D. in Molecular Virology from University of Oxford and was an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow at the Scripps Research Institute, USA.
Prior to Strand, Binay co-founded a molecular diagnostics startup with focus on early detection of cancer. He has also worked at Affymetrix's US and Japan offices and was instrumental in building the company's operations in Japan.
Binay has been a visiting researcher at the University of Tokyo and teaches molecular diagnostics at the University of California, Santa Cruz extension. Binay has research and commercialization interests in genomics, molecular diagnostics and personalized medicine.