Breakthroughs in the biotech industry have led molecular diagnostics to slowly become a benchmark of modern healthcare. There is, however, an increasing need to streamline many such diagnostic approaches and find the proper correlation between diagnostics and treatment timelines. Struggling to provide rapid and precise screenings, healthcare providers rely on blood culture-based analysis and diagnosis to screen for infections. Such analysis can be slow and cumbersome, resulting in infections left untreated and delays before starting treatment.
As one of the first three employees at Melio, focused on screening infectious pathogens in newborn babies, Shubhodeep Paul contributed to the product development of Melio's platform. His contributions played an essential role in building upon the efforts of founder Mridu Sinha. Blood culture-based screening in neonates exacerbates the problem of slow and cumbersome diagnosis since clinically relevant results for treatment purposes must be obtained within 1-3 hours of the sample collection.
At Melio, he was in charge of researching, designing, and developing technology for multiple disciplines, including consumables, sample preparation, assay optimization, microfluidics, optics, and other system-level parts. One of his most significant contributions was the research concepts and paper prototyping for microfluidics-based sample preparation and enrichment of organisms, starting with direct blood samples. Thus, Shubhodeep added to Melio's patent profile and geared Melio towards productizing an automated end-to-end platform solution.
Today, Shubhodeep Paul works at Nautilus Biotechnology, an organization building a platform to map the proteome to accelerate therapeutic development, improve medical diagnostics, and make predictive medicine a reality. As a Bio-MEMs Engineer at Nautilus, Shubhodeep relies on his years of experience researching and finding solutions to build innovative technologies. Nautilus is one place where he gets to do that, but it's not the only place he's had an impact.
Prior to entering the Biotech Industry, Shubhodeep worked to improve the state-of-the-art in DNA analysis workflows, focusing on sample preparation, integrating liquid-liquid extraction protocol, and bead-free DNA extraction on Electrowetting on Dielectric (EWOD) digital microfluidics during his time at the University of Texas at Arlington. His work resulted in a cost-efficient solution that was easy to integrate with further assay steps, opening many nucleic acid-based workflows to be automation candidates.
Using the EWOD principle as a basis, the platform that came out of the project was an integrated microfluidic system capable of DNA extraction and purification. This technology inside an instrument could drastically reduce the amount of time it takes to make scientific discoveries related to nucleic acid research. Used in a molecular diagnostic medical device, it can also help diagnose a disease or infection in a fraction of the time it takes on average, saving countless lives. Presenting this work at MicroTas 2019 in Basel, Switzerland, was a highlight of Shubhodeep's career.
Shubhodeep is the lead inventor of multiple patents for the EWOD device that can perform liquid-liquid extraction in microdroplets. He made a significant contribution to Melio's patent portfolio. He has also been published in a major journal and presented his work at conferences worldwide.
Microfluidics is a powerful field with many untapped potentials, and Shubhodeep's expertise has uncovered many such potential applications. Capable of solving problems across industries and research settings, Shubhodeep often finds himself learning about and working to solve problems in the biotechnology field. Where innovation is needed, Shubhodeep goes, and with him, he brings unmatched determination, incredible problem-solving skills, and a deep understanding of scientific requirements.
