Dr. Sankarprasad Bhuniya currently serves as a research professor at Amrita Center for Industrial Research & Innovation and Amrita Center for Excellence in Advanced Materials and Green Technologies. He is also a professor in the department of Chemical Engineering, Amrita School of Engineering, Coimbatore. During his visit to Amrita School of Biotechnology on December 9, 2016, he delivered an excellent, informative talk on Chemoselective Fluorescent Probe for Tracking of Small Molecule and Chemotherapeutic in Living Cells. He explained how small molecular reactive fluorogenic probes can be smartly utilized to interrogate short-lived reactive species in the cellular microenvironment in a pathogenic or nonpathogenic state. By exploiting the differences in molecular reactivity, these emerging strategies for fluorescence-based bio-imaging can sort and identify the species of interest within this complex microenvironment.

Recently, a chemoselective probe for potassium cyanide (KCN), nitroxyl (HNO), tumor hypoxia imaging has been developed. A Nitroxyl(HNO) probe for tracking HNO in systems, such as resistance to superoxideinfraction in mammalian vascular systems. Dr. Buniya also has expertise in thernostic prodrugs. Theranostics, combining therapy and diagnosis, is an appealing approach for chemotherapy in medicine and exhibits improved biodistribution, selective cancer targeting ability, reduced toxicity, masked drug efficacy, and minimum side effects. The role of diagnostic tools in theranostics is to collect information about the diseased state before and after specific treatment.