Avinash Manjula-Basavanna
Senior Research Scientist, Bioengineering
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Research Focus
Engineered Living Materials, Synthetic Biology, Materials Engineering, Biomanufacturing, Nanotechnology, Protein Engineering, Additive Manufacturing, Sustainability and Nature-Inspired Engineering.
About
Avinash Manjula-Basavanna obtained his PhD on Bioinspired Molecular and Materials Engineering at Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bengaluru, India. He then moved to Harvard University as a Wyss Institute Postdoctoral Fellow to work on Engineered Living Materials, wherein he Genetically Engineered Microbes to produce Sustainable Materials with Integrated Life-like Properties. Subsequently, he has worked at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and he is currently working as a Senior Research Scientist at the Department of Bioengineering, Northeastern University, Boston. He is also a Visiting Scientist at the Department of Biological Systems Engineering, Virginia Tech, USA. He has made pioneering contributions to the emerging field of Engineered Living Materials and his research interests are at the interface of Synthetic Biology, Materials Engineering, Biomanufacturing, Nanotechnology, Protein Engineering, Additive Manufacturing, Sustainability and Nature-Inspired Engineering.
In 2020, he was featured as one of the World’s Top 35 Innovators Under 35 by Technology Review, MIT. He was the Grand Prize Winner of American National Science Foundation (NSF) Idea Machine (Big Idea) competition. He was recognized as a Deep Tech Pioneer and the recipient of Gandhian Young Technological Innovation Award and STAT Wunderkind Award. He was also selected for the Innovation Scholars In-Residence Program by the President of India, Harvard Innovation Lab’s Venture Incubation Program and MIT Engine’s Blueprint program for the Tough Tech Founders. His research work has been highlighted by several global media outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Smithsonian Magazine, New Scientist, The Naked Scientist, Science Alert etc.
Research Overview
Engineered Living Materials, Synthetic Biology, Materials Engineering, Biomanufacturing, Nanotechnology, Protein Engineering, Additive Manufacturing, Sustainability and Nature-Inspired Engineering.
Selected Papers
# Equal Contribution * Co-Corresponding Author
M.-B. Avinash*, A. Duraj-Thatte, N. S. Joshi, Mechanically Tunable, Compostable, Healable and Scalable Engineered Living Materials, Nat. Commun., 2024 (Accepted)
A. Duraj-Thatte#, M.-B. Avinash#, N. M. D. Courchesne#, G. Cannici, A. Sánchez-Ferrer, B. P. Frank, L. van ‘t Hag, S. K. Cotts, D. H. Fairbrother, R. Mezzenga, N. S. Joshi, Water-Processable, Biodegradable and Coatable Aquaplastic from Engineered Microbial Biofilms, Nat. Chem. Biol., 2021, 17, 732-738.
A. Duraj-Thatte#, M.-B. Avinash#*, S. Hassan, A. Sourlis, J. Xia, A. Lesha, A. G. Rubio, J. Rutledge, S. Y. Zhang, N. S. Joshi, Programmable Microbial Ink for 3D Printing of Living Materials Produced from Genetically Engineered Protein Nanofibers, Nat. Commun., 2021, 12, 6600.
M.-B. Avinash*, A. Duraj-Thatte, N. S. Joshi, Robust Self-regeneratable Stiff Living Material Fabricated from Microbial Cells, Adv. Funct. Mater., 2021, 31, 2010784.
D. Birnbaum, M.-B. Avinash, A. Kan, B. L. Tardy, N. S. Joshi, Hybrid Living Capsules Autonomously Produced by Engineered Bacteria, Adv. Sci., 2021, 8, 2004699.
P. K. R. Tay, M.-B. Avinash and N. S. Joshi, Repurposing bacterial extracellular matrix for selective and differential abstraction of rare earth elements, Green Chem., 2018, 20, 3512-3520.