Assistant Professor
Department of Chemistry
Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani
Pilani Campus
Contact Details
Email: satyajit.patra@pilani.bits-pilani.ac.in
Phone: +91-1596-255736
About the Faculty
Dr. Satyajit Patra is born and raised in a small village near Bankura town in West Bengal. He attended Bankura Christian College (under Burdwan University) to pursue his bachelor studies (B.Sc) in Chemistry from 2004-2007. He completed M.Sc in Chemistry from IIT Kharagpur in 2009. In IIT Kharagpur he got interested in advanced topics of fluorescence spectroscopy while working on his master thesis. After then he joined the group of Prof. Anunay Samanta, one of the leading fluorescence chemist in India at School of Chemistry, University of Hyderabad in 2009 for his Ph.D study. His doctoral thesis was focused on understanding the photophysics of quantum dots and diffusion of small fluorescent probes in complex solvent media using fluorescence correlation spectroscopy.
He moved to Germany after his Ph.D in 2015 and worked in the group of Prof. Roland Winter at TU Dortmund. There, he developed a sample chamber to perform single molecule fluorescence studies at high pressure. He performed the first single molecule FRET measurement at high pressure to investigate the pressure effect on the conformational dynamics of the biomolecules. After his first postdoc, he joined the group of Dr. Jerome Wenger at CNRS Institut Fresnel, Marseille, France in 2018. There, he got introduced to the world of nanoplasmonics and used the plasmonic nanomaterials to breach the diffraction limit in single molecule detection to improve the net detected signal from the single molecule and to perform single molecule study at physiologically relevant concentrations.
After staying in abroad for 6 years and 4 months, he returned to India in November 2021 and worked in GITAM University, Visakhapatnam as assistant professor prior to his joining in Birla Institute of Technology and Science as assistant professor in January 2022. His main research interest is to utilize the tools from physical chemistry to understand the structure-function relationship of the molecular machines of life e.g. protein, DNA and RNA. He is particularly interested to study the DNA and protein structures which have potential applications in anticancer and antiviral therapy.
Short Biodata
- Jan 2022 - Present: Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, Pilani Campus, India
- Nov 2021 - Dec 2021: Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, GITAM Institute of Science, GITAM University, Visakhapatnam Campus, India.
- July 2018 - Oct 2021: Postdoctoral Researcher, Institut Fresnel CNRS UMR 7249, Marseille, France.
- July 2015 - June 2018: Postdoctoral Researcher, TU Dortmund & Ruhr University of Bochum, Germany.
- Jan 2015 - May 2015: Research Associate, School of Chemistry, University of Hyderabad, India.
- Aug 2009 - Nov 2014: Ph.D Student, School of Chemistry, University of Hyderabad, India.