Although music has a very important place in their lives, Ashwin and Rohin are also engineers by profession and are both equally passionate about research in their respective fields of study. A few points on their research are detailed below.
Reflecting on Refraction
Ashwin is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Alberta.
His research involves synthesizing materials that exhibit properties not found in nature, so called “metamaterials” that refract light in unique and incredible new ways.
Such materials have tremendous potential for practical applications, such as: the ability to make lenses that are able to print smaller and faster microchips, increase the storage of digital media by hundreds of times, and image tumours in the body with unprecedented resolution. As reported recently in the news, such materials can also be designed to render objects invisible, and are being investigated for cloaking technologies.
Cutting Edge Cell and Gene Therapy Research
Rohin completed his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering and is currently employed as Global Program Manager for Cell and Gene Therapy Market Support at GE Healthcare (soon to be Cytiva) Biopharma. in Toronto, ON. His interests are in developing products and processes to treat patients with debilitating diseases such as cancer and heart disease, leveraging his past expertise in tissue engineering and stem-cell bioengineering.
Rohin is currently supporting GE Healthcare’s product line globally to deliver meaningful products, processes, and solutions primarily to customers in the area of immuno-oncology. These gene edited therapies, including Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T cell therapy, are showing great promise to in the treatment of the debilitating of hematologic (i.e. blood-borne) cancers.