Student Research on Preterm Birth Wins First Prize
May 28, 2015
Suresh Kumar, a chemistry PhD candidate from New Delhi, India, won first place for his poster at the 39th International Symposium on Capillary Chromatography (ISCC) last week.
The annual symposium, held this year in Fort Worth, Texas, involves research from different branches of separation science. Kumar attended the conference to share his progress on developing a microfluidic-based platform for diagnosing preterm birth (PTB). PTB—delivery before 37 weeks of gestation—is the most common pregnancy complication. “It will be a valuable service to society,” Kumar predicted for his research. “Early diagnosis will provide the opportunity to effectively treat PTB and save millions of lives.”
The scholars at ISCC certainly agreed with Kumar’s prediction. His poster titled “Integration of solid-phase extraction and microchip electrophoresis for preterm birth biomarker analysis” won him first place in the poster session and a cash prize of $500.
“Suresh is a hard worker who consistently overcomes obstacles in challenging research projects,” said Kumar’s faculty advisor, Dr. Adam T. Woolley. “His creativity and persistence have allowed him to achieve a number of significant advances in microfluidics and nanofluidics.”
Kumar will defend his dissertation this summer, and will then leave research for an engineering position at Intel Corporation.
Read another article on Kumar and his award here.