Associate Professor Ashok Prasad, Chemical & Biological Engineering

Ashok Prasad

Professor, Chemical & Biological Engineering

Ashok Prasad joined the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department as an Assistant Professor in Spring 2009.

Prasad’s undergraduate degree (a B.Sc.(Hons) in Physics) was from St. Stephens College, Delhi University in 1985. He then moved to studying Economics and earned a MA from the Delhi School of Economics, in 1987. He taught economics in Khalsa (E) College of Delhi University till 2001. However, his love for physics inspired him to join Brandeis University (Waltham, MA) in 2001 for a Ph.D.

At Brandeis he worked with Professor Jane’ Kondev on biologically inspired problems in soft matter. After graduating in 2006 he joined the computational immunology group of Prof. Arup Chakraborty at MIT as a postdoc, where he worked on thymocyte selection and T cell activation till he joined CSU in 2009.

Contact Information

Resources

Research Interests

Prasad’s research interests lie at the interface of biology with physics and engineering. His group applies a variety of modeling methods to answer fundamental questions in biological and biomedical engineering, and does wet lab experiments imaging cells under a variety of conditions.

Current projects include:

  1. Applying AI and machine learning to learn cellular phenotypes using imaging data, with applications to stem cell differentiation and tissue engineering
  2. Development of realistic tumor models for patient-based diagnosis. Simulations of the tumor ECM
  3. Stochastic models of protein synthesis to understand the role of noise in (i) development, (ii) synaptic transmission and (iii) timing cellular processes
  4. Synthetic biology for biosensor development
  5. Systems biology modeling of information processing by the plant hormone network, and by signaling circuits more generally.

Education

  • Ph.D. 2006, Brandeis University – Physics
  • M.S. 2004, Brandeis University – Physics
  • M.A. 1988, University of Delhi – Economics
  • B.Sc. 1985, University of Delhi – Physics

Other appointments

  • School of Biomedical Engineering

  • Department of Chemistry

  • Molecular, Cellular & Integrative Neuroscience