Ambika Bumb

Ambika Bumb
Alma mater University of Oxford (PhD)
Georgia Institute of Technology (BME)
Occupation
  • CEO
  • Engineer
  • Scientist
Organization Bikanta
Honors Marshall Scholar

Dr. Ambika Bumb is the CEO and Founder of Bikanta.[1] Bumb is a nanomedicine specialist and Marshall Scholar whose work spans uses of a variety of types of nanotechnology for the detection of treatment of disease. Her discoveries using nanodiamonds while working as postdoctoral researcher at the National Cancer Institute and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute led to the launch of the biotech Bikanta.[2][3]

Early life

Bumb was born to Indian parents who immigrated to the United States for higher education.[4] Her father was one of the earliest in his family to complete his Doctor of Philosophy degree and her mother the first female in her town to go to college.[4] Her maternal-grandfather was a veterinarian.[4] Bumb graduated as from Southside High School as valedictorian in 2002, where her younger sister and brother also followed her as valedictorians.

Career

Bumb graduated in 2005 from Georgia Tech with a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering and a Minor in Economics from Georgia Institute of Technology, while being recognized with the Helen E. Grenga Outstanding Woman Engineer and E. Jo Baker President’s Scholar Awards.[5][6] With an early interest in nanomedicine, she conducted research focused on tracking quantum dots in bone and cartilage while also being an active leader in various campus organizations.

In 2008, Bumb completed her doctorate in Medical Engineering in three years from University of Oxford while also on the prestigious Marshall Scholarship and NIH-OxCam Program.[7][8] Her doctoral work brought together 4 labs from 2 institutes, 4 fields, and 2 countries. She developed a triple-reporting nanoparticle and showed the technology’s transferability across different disease types with studies in cancer and multiple sclerosis. The magnetic nanoparticles demonstrated strong potential in cancer diagnostics and therapy.[7][9] Upon graduation, she continued to go on to two post-doctoral fellowships at the National Cancer Institute and National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. She has received much recognition for excellence in engineering and was profiled early in her career in Nature as a successful young scientist on the fast-track.

Her breakthroughs in the areas of nanomedicine and diagnostics have led to multiple patents, publications, and the spin out of the biotech Bikanta[6] that is using nanodiamonds to allow academics and doctors to study and address disease at the cellular level. Nanodiamonds are next generation imaging probes[10] trailblazing cutting-edge research including applications with the recent Nobel Prize in Chemistry for super-resolved fluorescence microscopy and utility in portable cancer detection devices. Bikanta is one of the first biotechs to be funded by Y Combinator, winner of the Silicon Valley Boomer Venture and CapCon Competitions, a California Life Science Institute's FAST Awardee, and named 1 of 4 Best Diagnostics Startups of 2015 by QB3.

Complementary to her scientific and commercial interests, Bumb has also been involved in national science policy initiatives, particularly related to nanotechnology.[11]

Bumb was featured as a female role model to empower young girls by Career Girls.[12] She has been appreciated in various interviews, including by Nature at the Naturejobs Career Expo, San Francisco[13][14] and in an interview by WeFunder.[15]

Selected works

Papers

  • Macromolecules, Dendrimers, and Nanomaterials in Magnetic Resonance Imaging: The Interplay between Size, Function, and Pharmacokinetics[16]
  • Synthesis and characterization of ultra-small superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles thinly coated with silica[17]
  • Synthesis of a Cross-Bridged Cyclam Derivative for Peptide Conjugation and 64Cu Radiolabeling[18]
  • Macromolecular and dendrimer-based magnetic resonance contrast agents[19]
  • Wide-field in vivo background free imaging by selective magnetic modulation of nanodiamond fluorescence[20]
  • Silica Encapsulation of Fluorescent Nanodiamonds for Colloidal Stability and Facile Surface Functionalization[21]
  • Trafficking of a Dual-Modality Magnetic Resonance and Fluorescence Imaging Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide-Based Nanoprobe to Lymph Nodes[22]

Inventions

  • Silica-Coated Nanodiamonds for Imaging and the Delivery of Therapeutic Agents[23]
  • Fluorescent Nanodiamonds as Fiducial Markers for Microscopy[24]
  • Background-Free Fluorescent Nanodiamond Imaging[25]

Personal life

Bumb practices Jainism[4] and has been a dancer from an early age.

Awards and recognition

  • Marshall Scholarship[2]
  • The Council of Outstanding Young Engineering Alumni Award - Georgia Institute of Technology[5]
  • Orloff Science Award for Technical Achievement - National Institutes of Health
  • National Institutes of Health-Oxford Cambridge Scholarship in Biomedical Sciences
  • Georgia Institute of Technology President’s Scholarship
  • Aspen Health Forum Fellow
  • Helen E. Grenga Outstanding Woman Engineer Award
  • E. Jo Baker Award for outstanding President’s Scholar
  • Omicron Delta Kappa Award for Outstanding Leadership
  • Women In Engineering Excellence Award
  • Akamai Foundation Award through the Mathematical Association of America
  • Winner of Silicon Valley Boomer Venture Summit
  • Winner of CapCon Business Competition

References

  1. ↑ Russon, Mary-Ann (2014-08-18). "Microscopic Diamonds Are Lighting The Way to Early Cancer Detection". International Business Times UK. Retrieved 2017-10-31.
  2. 1 2 "NIH Marshall Scholarships". Marshall Scholarship. Retrieved 2017-10-31.
  3. ↑ "All Inventions from Dr. Ambika Bumb". NIH Office of Technology Transfer. Retrieved 2017-10-31.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Ambika Bumb". Young Jain Professionals. 2014-11-25. Retrieved 2017-10-31.
  5. 1 2 Rich, Walter (2016-05-13). "Ambika Bumb and Xavier Lefebvre Honored at the College of Engineering Alumni Awards Induction Ceremony". The Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology & Emory University School of Medicine. Retrieved 2017-10-31.
  6. 1 2 "Ambika Bumb - Bikanta - YC Female Founder Stories". YC Female Founder Stories. Retrieved 2017-10-31.
  7. 1 2 McCook, Alison (2011-04-20). "Education: Rethinking PhDs". Nature News. 472 (7343): 280–282. doi:10.1038/472280a.
  8. ↑ Commemoration., Commission, Marshall Aid (2013). Fifty ninth annual report of the marshall aid commemoration commission for. Tso. p. 25. ISBN 0108512207. OCLC 925437833.
  9. ↑ Vara, Vauhini (2014-08-20). "Fever Pitch". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2017-11-01.
  10. ↑ Buhr, Sarah (2014-08-07). "Bikanta's Tiny Diamonds Find Cancer Before It Spreads". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2017-11-01.
  11. ↑ Bumb, Ambika. "A Nano Step For Man, A Giant Leap For Mankind". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2017-12-12.
  12. ↑ Bikanta (2017-04-17), Ambika Bumb CareerGirls Interview, retrieved 2017-12-12
  13. ↑ Leeming, Jack (2016-06-14). "What's your average day like?". Nature. Retrieved 2017-11-01.
  14. ↑ Leeming, Jack (2016-08-02). "How to start a startup: Naturejobs Blog". Nature. Retrieved 2017-11-01.
  15. ↑ Wefunder (2015-11-18), Bikanta: Using Nano-Diamonds to Detect Cancer, retrieved 2017-12-12
  16. ↑ Villaraza, Aaron Joseph; Bumb, Ambika; Brechbiel, Martin W. (2010-05-12). "Macromolecules, Dendrimers, and Nanomaterials in Magnetic Resonance Imaging: The Interplay between Size, Function, and Pharmacokinetics". Chemical Reviews. 110 (5): 2921–2959. doi:10.1021/cr900232t. ISSN 0009-2665. PMC 2868950.
  17. ↑ Bumb, A.; Brechbiel, M. W.; Choyke, P. L.; Fugger, L.; Eggeman, A.; Prabhakaran, D.; Hutchinson, J.; Dobson, P. J. (2008). "Synthesis and characterization of ultra-small superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles thinly coated with silica". Nanotechnology. 19 (33): 335601. doi:10.1088/0957-4484/19/33/335601. ISSN 0957-4484. PMC 2600798.
  18. ↑ Boswell, C. Andrew; Regino, Celeste A. S.; Baidoo, Kwamena E.; Wong, Karen J.; Bumb, Ambika; Xu, Heng; Milenic, Diane E.; Kelley, James A.; Lai, Christopher C. (2008-07-01). "Synthesis of a Cross-Bridged Cyclam Derivative for Peptide Conjugation and 64Cu Radiolabeling". Bioconjugate Chemistry. 19 (7): 1476–1484. doi:10.1021/bc800039e. ISSN 1043-1802.
  19. ↑ Bumb, Ambika; Brechbiel, Martin W.; Choyke, Peter (2010-09-01). "Macromolecular and dendrimer-based magnetic resonance contrast agents". Acta Radiologica. 51 (7): 751–767. doi:10.3109/02841851.2010.491091. ISSN 0284-1851.
  20. ↑ Sarkar, Susanta K.; Bumb, Ambika; Wu, Xufeng; Sochacki, Kem A.; Kellman, Peter; Brechbiel, Martin W.; Neuman, Keir C. (2014-04-01). "Wide-field in vivo background free imaging by selective magnetic modulation of nanodiamond fluorescence". Biomedical Optics Express. 5 (4): 1190–1202. doi:10.1364/BOE.5.001190. ISSN 2156-7085.
  21. ↑ Bumb, Ambika; Sarkar, Susanta K.; Billington, Neil; Brechbiel, Martin W.; Neuman, Keir C. (2013-05-29). "Silica Encapsulation of Fluorescent Nanodiamonds for Colloidal Stability and Facile Surface Functionalization". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 135 (21): 7815–7818. doi:10.1021/ja4016815. ISSN 0002-7863.
  22. ↑ Bumb, Ambika; Regino, Celeste A. S.; Egen, Jackson G.; Bernardo, Marcelino; Dobson, Peter J.; Germain, Ronald N.; Choyke, Peter L.; Brechbiel, Martin W. (2011-12-01). "Trafficking of a Dual-Modality Magnetic Resonance and Fluorescence Imaging Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide-Based Nanoprobe to Lymph Nodes". Molecular Imaging and Biology. 13 (6): 1163–1172. doi:10.1007/s11307-010-0424-8. ISSN 1536-1632.
  23. ↑ "Silica-Coated Nanodiamonds for Imaging and the Delivery of Therapeutic Agents | Office of Technology Transfer, NIH". www.ott.nih.gov. Retrieved 2017-11-01.
  24. ↑ "Fluorescent Nanodiamonds as Fiducial Markers for Microscopy | Office of Technology Transfer, NIH". www.ott.nih.gov. Retrieved 2017-11-01.
  25. ↑ "Background-Free Fluorescent Nanodiamond Imaging | Office of Technology Transfer, NIH". www.ott.nih.gov. Retrieved 2017-11-01.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.